Maryam Efekharian holds a PhD in Hispanic Philology, is a human rights activist, and a contributor to the Alternativas Foundation. 
After ten days of enforced digital silence and twenty days of mass protests across Iran against the theocratic and oppressive regime of the ayatollahs, news emerging from the country has laid bare both the unstoppable scale of popular resistance and the chilling number of those killed, disappeared, or arbitrarily detained.
The ayatollahs’ regime sought to silence the Iranian people by disconnecting the entire country from the global internet. Yet today, more than ever, the people—like a phoenix—are rising from the ashes with renewed strength. A population wounded by repression has once again found its voice, no longer protesting solely against economic collapse and widespread poverty, but against the very structure of authoritarian power itself.
What initially appeared to be a protest against runaway inflation and the dramatic devaluation of the national currency proved to be only the tip of the iceberg. These grievances triggered a wave of strikes beginning on 28 December at Tehran’s Grand Bazaar—the heart of the country’s financial life—which soon spread to cities large and small, as well as to countless towns across the nation. Although the government remains unwilling to heed the people’s cries, the message is unmistakable: the protesters are united in their demand for a new dawn.
This time, the movement does not belong to a single social group. Students, workers, professionals, homemakers, and even former loyalists of the system have joined forces in a common front. Images that managed to escape the digital blackout show unveiled women walking alongside the elderly; women wearing the hijab accompanied by their young children; young people painting revolutionary slogans on school walls; and marginalized neighborhoods in southern Tehran transformed into genuine bastions of dignity.
Following the call by Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi to take to the streets on 9 and 10 January to demand fundamental rights, a tide of enraged yet courageous citizens flooded Iran’s streets. Far from subsiding, the protests have now spread to more than 180 cities and towns, tracing a nationwide map of discontent that spans the entire country.
The regime’s official response has been as predictable as it has been brutal: total internet shutdowns, mass surveillance through satellite technology, an information blackout, arbitrary arrests, and a repression that has plunged countless households into mourning. Yet every bullet fired, every arrest made, and every attempt at silencing has only added fuel to the fire. Lacking national legitimacy, this regime seeks through inhumane repression to crush the Iranian people and prevent their cries from crossing borders and reaching the world. The international community watches—at times with complicit silence, at others with tepid statements. Meanwhile, the Iranian people are writing, with their blood and their courage, one of the most moving chapters of the struggle for freedom in the twenty-first century.
This is not merely an image; it is a testimony. Behind every statistic lies a face, behind every slogan a dream, and behind every protest a nation that has declared “down with the theocratic regime.” In every word and every act of resistance, one undeniable truth pulses: the fundamental demand for freedom and the profound chasm separating clerical power from society.
The regime may be capable of blacking out screens, deliberately cutting internet access, and imposing digital controls and surveillance, including interference with satellite networks such as Starlink. What it cannot erase, however, is memory—nor can it extinguish the longing of a people who have finally resolved to rewrite their own history.
The images and videos that have managed to leave the country starkly reveal the scale of this genocide: hundreds of bodies lying on the ground in just one forensic center in Kahrizak; grieving families searching for their loved ones among countless black body bags. Many of these recordings show the lifeless bodies of children and young people, still staring skyward, medical tubes or patches attached—shot in the head to silence their voices forever.
These harrowing images inevitably evoke scenes of the Holocaust, particularly the massacre of Jews during the Second World War. We must not forget that this information represents only a fraction of Iran’s present tragedy, as images from small towns and more remote cities have yet to emerge. There is no doubt that once those scenes come to light, their impact will be even more shocking and devastating.
What truly shocks and outrages any impartial observer is the indifference of the Spanish government in the face of the genocide being perpetrated in Iran, and its failure to place itself on the right side of history. Without question, the slaughter of thousands of unarmed innocents by an oppressive and bloodthirsty regime constitutes clear evidence of crimes against humanity. Where is Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez? Are there bilateral interests that might explain the Spanish government’s morally indifferent stance?
The supposed humanitarian proclamations emanating from the West and from institutions that present themselves as guardians of ethics and human rights appear, in this context, deeply questionable. It is precisely here that moral criteria and the fundamental principles of human rights are called into question, and where the tragedy reveals itself in all its magnitude. Faced with such an evident reality, does any justification for this silence still remain?
