This is one of an Iranian journalist’s dispatches from protests, morgues, and funerals over two weeks in January 2026, offering a rare ground-level view of what Amnesty International calls a “massacre.” Shared via an encrypted channel, these dispatches provide a firsthand account of a crackdown.
Dear sister, hello. Today is January 8. It is 12:15 AM. I’ve just gotten home, and the sound of gunfire still hasn’t stopped. The internet and SMS have been down for hours, and even the phones are down. We have no way to reach each other. I don’t know why I’m writing these lines to you. I only know one thing: I have to write.
I feel as if my lungs have swollen like balloons, filled with tear gas. My voice won’t come out after all the screaming. But none of that matters next to what I saw tonight in the streets of Tehran. There were so many of us. Everyone was in the streets. And yet, sister, tonight the best of us were taken. They went drenched in blood, as bullets tore through their heads, necks, and chests.