Over the last few days, the Iranian diaspora has been living through something surreal.
We woke up to news of US and Israeli strikes on the Islamic Republic’s military infrastructure, then watched videos of explosions in the cities we grew up in.
Many of us have had limited contact with family and friends inside Iran, and that fear sits in the background of every conversation.
And yet, large numbers of Iranians have still come out into the streets, both inside Iran and across the diaspora, to celebrate what they see as the symbolic end of a dark era.
For many, it feels like a psychological turning point, even while the future is completely uncertain.
If you see people dancing or smiling, do not mistake that for indifference.
Iranians know there will be collateral damage. People are grieving, anxious, and exhausted.
The joy you see is our own language of protest, a release after decades of fear.
It is relief at the weakening of the regime’s armed bases and detention machinery, places associated with torture, repression, and prison.
There is still huge uncertainty.
Nobody knows how long the strikes will continue, what the response will be, or what comes next.
Many in the diaspora have called this a rescue intervention, not because war is desirable, but because they believe the regime has left no safe path for change.
Right now, there is also a visible unity forming around Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, because many people see him as a credible figure to help Iran through a transition.
That hope is real, but so is the awareness that the road ahead will be hard.
Iranians value peace. But we also know a simple truth: when you are dealing with a cancer that has no treatment left, surgery is brutal, but it can be the only way to stop the disease from spreading.
To those who have stood with us, and to those witnessing our protests for the first time.
You might ask yourself why Iranian diaspora communities come to the streets week after week.
Why they march in cities far from home, why they chant, why they refuse to be silent.
The answer is not nostalgia. It is not political posturing.
It is survival and truth.
Before 1979, Iran was not perfect, but it was a society on a path forward. People studied, worked, loved, argued, and created. Iran was outward looking, culturally alive, and connected to the world. Women studied and worked, universities produced scientists and thinkers, and ordinary families believed tomorrow could be better than today.
That trajectory was violently cut short.
The 1979 revolution did not merely change a government. It imposed an ideology. An ideology that defines doubt as heresy, expression as danger, and freedom as an enemy. A system that treats mercy as weakness and dissent as something to be erased. This ideology stands in direct conflict with freedom in every accent of the word.
What we face today is not a policy dispute.
It is a confrontation with a dark shadow that feeds on fear and silence.
Last month, nationwide protests swept across Iran. In just two days, reports emerged of mass killings on a scale that is difficult to comprehend. Tens of thousands are believed to have been killed during the crackdowns. Hospitals were overwhelmed. Families lost contact with loved ones. Entire cities went dark as communications were deliberately shut down.
And when crimes of this scale are buried under silence, distance, and disbelief, those who can still speak must do so loudly.
When you hear us chant in two languages, there is a reason for that.
We chant in Persian because it is a message to our friends back home. To those who endured internet blackouts, fear, and isolation. To those who were cut off from the world and left wondering if anyone still sees them. Persian is how we say: you are not forgotten, you are not alone, and your voices still reach us.
We chant in English because the world needs to hear what is happening, clearly and without distortion. English is how we tell you what is being done, who is responsible, and what we are asking for. It is how we break the isolation that this regime depends on.
The force that carried out this massacre was the IRGC. The same organisation that enforces repression inside Iran, that exports violence beyond its borders, and whose footprint appears again and again in conflicts and instability across the region and beyond. Yet the UK government still has not proscribed the IRGC as a terrorist organisation.
This contradiction matters.
Because accountability cannot exist while perpetrators are treated as political abstractions rather than what they are.
This is the reality of Iran today.
A state that responds to peaceful protest with live ammunition.
A system that treats its own people as expendable.
A power structure that normalises massacre and calls it order.
If you want to help, there is something practical you can do.
Please visit our website. There you will find a letter addressed to elected representatives. You are free to read it, use it, adapt it, or ignore it and write your own. There is also a simple search box to help you find your MP and their email address. A few minutes of your time can help break the silence that allows crimes like these to continue.
We are not asking for charity.
We are asking for attention.
For moral clarity.
For the refusal to look away.
History will not ask whether the numbers were comfortable.
It will ask who spoke, and who stayed silent.
That is why we are on the streets.
That is why we will keep coming back.
Footnote
1. In January 2026, Time Magazine reported that two senior Iranian health officials stated that internal counts and hospital data suggested as many as 30,000 people may have been killed within two days of protest crackdowns.
Iran is living through one of the gravest human rights crises of our time.
Since late 2025, nationwide protests have spread across the country following a public call by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi for peaceful national mobilisation against repression and authoritarian rule. These demonstrations are not confined to one group or ideology. They involve ordinary people, workers, students, women, pensioners, and families demanding basic dignity, accountability, and freedom from fear. The response of the Islamic Republic has been violent and systematic.
More than 30,000 people are now confirmed dead following the regime’s nationwide crackdown. Some reports indicate that over 36,500 people were killed within days in early January 2026 alone. Tens of thousands more have been arrested, many held without charge, subjected to torture, or forcibly disappeared.
Across major cities, security forces have imposed siege like conditions. Lethal force has been used against unarmed civilians. Families are often given no information about detained relatives. Public mourning is restricted, and in many cases punished.
Alongside physical repression, the authorities have enforced prolonged internet and communication shutdowns since early January 2026. These blackouts are deliberate. They prevent people from organising, from documenting abuses, and from letting the outside world see what is happening.
For millions of Iranians, this means isolation, fear, and silence. For families abroad, it means waiting without news, unsure whether loved ones are alive.
At the centre of this repression stands the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The IRGC coordinates internal security operations, oversees mass arrests, and plays a direct role in the use of lethal force. It has been widely implicated in serious human rights violations, including extrajudicial killings. Its activities do not stop at Iran’s borders. Dissidents and diaspora communities, including in the UK, have reported threats and intimidation.
This is not only a humanitarian disaster. It is a crisis of legitimacy.
A state that rules through fear, mass killing, and enforced silence no longer governs with the consent of its people. Despite attempts to restore surface control, the underlying demands for freedom and accountability remain.
Many Iranians now look toward a future based on national unity, secular governance, and the rule of law. Some see a constitutional monarchy as a stabilising framework for democratic transition. What unites them is the rejection of rule by violence.
Britain has a moral and legal responsibility to respond when mass repression and transnational threats are clearly documented.
We call on the United Kingdom and other democratic nations to act decisively.
As of January 2026, the UK Government has not yet proscribed the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a terrorist organisation, despite its central role in repression, although sanctions have been expanded and the issue remains under review.
We call for:
The people of Iran are not asking for sympathy. They are asking for principled action and moral clarity.
Standing with Iran means standing against state organised violence.
At barayeIran.org.uk, we are a group of Iranians in the diaspora working together to advocate for the end of the Islamic regime in Iran and to support democratic change. Our aim is to inform, connect, and empower people to take meaningful civic action.
We believe that coordinated voices, clear communication, and sustained international pressure can influence policy and help accelerate change.
Our vision for a new democracy in Iran is guided by four fundamental principles for national unity: safeguarding Iran’s territorial integrity, the separation of religion from government, equality of all citizens before the law, and the free right of the people to choose their own future.
We invite all those who care about Iran’s future to stand with us in the pursuit of a free and just Iran.
