The Daily - Arrests, Executions and the Iranian Protesters Who Refuse to Give Up

Episode Date: January 27, 2023

This episode contains descriptions of violence and injury. In September, protests began in Iran over the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, at the hands of the government. The demonstrations have since intensified, as has the government’s response, with thousands arrested and a terrifying campaign of public executions underway.Today, Iranians who have taken part in the demonstrations tell us — in their own words — why they are willing to brave such severe punishments to help bring about change.Guest: Cora Engelbrecht, an international reporter for The New York Times.Background reading: The protests in Iran have escalated amid anger over religious rules and a rock-bottom economy.A look at the Iranians who have been hanged, and those on death row, as the government tries to crush the monthslong uprising.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. 

From The New York Times, I'm Sabrina Tavernisi, and this is The Daily. In Iran, the massive demonstrations that begin in September over the death of a young woman at the hands of the government intensified in the months that followed, with protesters calling for an end to the Islamic regime. Mahsa Amini was arrested for not wearing what they said was correct hijab. Now women and men have spilled into the streets, attacking authoritarian symbols, chanting death to the dictator.

The regime, for its part, hit back, arresting thousands of protesters and undertaking a terrifying campaign of public executions. Iran has carried out its first known execution of a protester. A second protester has been executed by hanging. Iran once again has executed two protesters. The two men were identified as Mohammed Mehdi Karami and Syed Mohammed Hosseini. identified as Mohammed Mehdi Karami and Sayed Mohammed Hosseini. Today, my colleague Cora Engelbrecht on who is protesting in Iran and what they say about why they're willing to risk their lives to do it. It's Friday, January 27th. It's Friday, January 27th.

Cora, you've been covering the protests in Iran since September. And it's been a while since we've talked about them. In fact, it has been since September. So catch us up. What has been happening in Iran? The protests in Iran have been going on for about four months now. And in the first few months, we saw a huge escalation in the demonstrations that were taking place across scores of cities all over the country. incredibly brutal crackdown using repressive tactics, violence, mass arrests, now executions to instill this culture of fear and eliminate any signs of dissent. So we really wanted to understand and get a clearer picture of what was going on on the ground from people who were

in the streets living through these demonstrations. But we had a real problem, which is that we weren't there. We don't have anyone in the country right now. Like literally physically, you guys were not in Iran. No, we're not in Iran. It's actually been years since the New York Times has been able to have a correspondent work inside the country. This is mostly because the atmosphere is extremely hostile to foreign

news media organizations. Reporters are very at risk of harassment, detention, or worse. And it is incredibly difficult to reach people. Of course, this is all by design by the authorities who are clamping down on all conversations surrounding what's happening in the country. They're actively curbing the spread of information with widespread internet blackouts. And they're threatening protesters and their families that any interviews with media, especially foreign media, could lead to more pressure and more severe sentences. Okay, so what did you do? Like, how do you approach this as a reporting mission? At the start of the protest, we were relying heavily on videos that

were emerging on social media, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram. They were showing us extraordinarily vivid scenes from the demonstrations on the streets of women burning their hijabs, cutting their hair, but also giving us a sense of the violence that was taking place and what these protesters were up against. And so each morning,'m pouring through these videos

and then on September 30th, this series of especially violent, bloody images begin to emerge from this city called Zahadan, which is in the southeastern corner of Iran. These were just fragmented clips, but they gave me this glimpse into this horrific scene that seemed to be unfolding outside a huge prayer complex in the city.

They needed to be verified, they needed to be pieced together, so we set about finding eyewitnesses that could help us, which proved to be very difficult. But eventually there were two rights groups. They were able to connect me and my colleague, Nilo Tabrizi, to eyewitnesses and relatives of victims, even a medic who had treated a lot of people that day. These people were difficult to pin down. They would lose service constantly. They were under a lot of pressure because there were arrests that were taking place across the entire city. And it took about two weeks after this had all happened

before we were able to start piecing together a real picture of what had gone down. They told me on this day, a small group of 10 to 15 worshippers left the prayer complex before Friday prayers had completed to confront security officers that were stationed at this police station across the street from the prayer complex. They were coming out in solidarity with the nationwide demonstrations, but also to protest this alleged rape of a young girl by a police officer in another city in the region. young girl by a police officer in another city in the region. So the crowd starts growing. They start chanting anti-government slogans and hurling rocks.

And they are met with live bullets. and tear gas, which follows them back into the prayer complex where hundreds of people are still peacefully praying. One especially searing video showed worshippers who still had their heads bowed in prayer as gunfire can be heard raining down in the background. Over the course of the next few hours, somewhere between 66 to 96 people were killed. It was certainly the most lethal government action we had seen since the protests began, and it came to be known as Bloody Friday.

This window that we had into this day in Zahedan, it was incredibly violent. In fact, the most lethal that we've seen over the course of the demonstrations. But there were other forms of violence that were part of this wave of repression. Casualties were mounting across the country as protesters continued to clash with security forces. And we were hearing about more and more injuries. There were images emerging on social media that showed protesters with these injuries from rubber bullets and metal pellets that security forces were using in the streets to dispel crowds. But again, we didn't have anyone on the ground who could corroborate what was going on. We didn't have clear visibility. So it became crucial to reach people who were

actually experiencing this level of violence and could help us tell a definitive story about what was happening, similar to what we did in Zahedan. And eventually I found someone. Hello. Hello. How are you, Cora? Saman, how are you? Thank you. How are you, too? I'm okay. I'm okay. His nickname is Saman. Out of concern for his safety, we're not sharing his real name or his location.

Sorry for my language. No worries. My English is not perfect. Your English is very good. So, Cora, who is Saman, and what does he tell you? I was a protester. I just was a protester and we want my human rights, just my rights. Saman is a protester who started going out to the streets in the early days of the demonstrations in Tehran. We don't want Iranian regime, Islamic regime and mullahs.

And we was in the street and telling them, we don't want Islamic regime. He tells me about one particular day where he was preparing to go to the protests at Valyasar Square in Tehran. And he was on his motorbike approaching the square and a security officer was standing on the corner of the square. And actually, he told me that they locked eyes and the security officer raised his gun from a close distance and aimed at his head. And they shot in my eye from

near distance. A rubber bullet went right into his eye. He believes the security officer must have recognized him as one of the frontline activists who had been returning here night after night. Yes, I knew his face. So he cupped his hand to this mutilated eye.

He was afraid that it was going to fall out of its socket, and he drove himself to a hospital. Crazy. He was finally admitted to a government-run eye hospital called Farabi. And when he gets there, he's taken to this ward that is flooded with cases that are just like his. Wow. One witness saw a four-year-old girl roaming the halls with a bandaged eye.

A protester next to Saman is waiting to have eye surgery. His body is just completely riddled with these metal pellets. And they're all here in the same ward. So what are you thinking at this point in his telling of the story, Cora? Like all of these people in this hospital, many of whom have eye injuries, like was this an intentional thing that the government was doing? Reaching out to government-run facilities across the country to try and understand what was happening in these of these wards that were really deluged with cases of severe eye injuries. Doctors in three main hospitals across Tehran ended up estimating for me that they had seen at least 500 of these injuries since the start of the protests. Okay, Siman is one of hundreds of people who've been injured just like this. He's shot in the eye.

He finally makes it to a hospital. What happens? So when he gets to this ward that's flooded with like injuries, he's immediately told by two nurses that the ward is being patrolled by security officers. There was policemen in hospital. There was policemen, two officers, looking for protesters. And they asking you about what happened for your face. And that there are protesters there who have been arrested after surgery. In hospital, one of the nurse told me, take care. They looking for you. I was in another room and I heard from Collidor, where is bed 25? My bed number was 25.

After he learns from these nurses on his floor that some of the wounded are being arrested, he says he also overhears an officer soon after ask about his bed number from the hallway in this waiting room that he's in. Wow. I later find out that this is another common tactic that's happening in hospitals across the country, especially in the I wards, because if you arrive with this injury, you're pretty easily identified as someone who has participated in the movement. So does he get out? who has participated in the movement.

So does he get out? So Saman's mother, who lives outside of the country, she has actually flown back to Tehran as soon as she gets the news that her son has been injured. She shows up to this hospital as well. And with the help of a friend, is able to spirit away her son from the hospital, still in his hospital gown. Crazy. I was able to speak away her son from the hospital, still in his hospital gown. Crazy.

I was able to speak with her as well, and she told me she was terrified. Her son now has evidence of his participation in these demonstrations emblazoned on his face. I saw in his Instagram and everywhere, my photos was everywhere. My bloody photos was everywhere. My photos was everywhere. My bloody photos was everywhere. And pictures of his

injuries are apparently everywhere, circulating on social media. I was afraid for recognizing my face. And at that time, I decided to leave the country.

And within a few days, the two of them managed to get on a plane and flee the country. If I didn't run from Iran, 100% they killed me. If they're catching me, if they arrested me, 100% I'm sure they execute me. And he had reason to be so afraid because this was all happening against this backdrop of mass arrests that were taking place since the start of the demonstrations, which was something else that I wanted to understand more clearly. So I started looking for someone who could tell me what this was like firsthand. We'll be right back. So Cora, Simon leaves the country because he's afraid of getting arrested and potentially even getting executed. And you said that made you really want to find protesters who'd actually been arrested to really get a sense of what was happening in this moment in Iran.

So what do you do? Yeah, this seemed incredibly important to get our eyes on this because it was happening to so many people at this point. The mass arrest started at the start of the demonstrations. By mid-November, 14,000 people had been arrested by security forces. It felt like a huge tactic that the government was using to get people off of the streets, but also to scare a lot of the young kids that were coming out and were organizing these demonstrations from their universities, from their high schools. So I started looking for protesters who had been arrested.

Okay, and how did you go about that? The judicial system in Iran is notoriously murky, and there's an entire network of former prisoners, activists, journalists, and lawyers outside of the country who have actually for years made it their work to track prisoners as they're arrested, as they're navigating the judicial system. And I had been in touch with them about these numbers. So I reached out to them to see if they knew anyone who would speak to me. And they eventually put me in touch with someone. Okay, I just, I do want to make sure that, you know, you feel safe about this. you know you feel safe about this and I am curious to know why you've decided to speak at this moment. Well the security risks are faced at everyone including me too but I'm alive to speak out. To protect his identity we're going to call him S and the voice you'll hear is that of a translator. If I do not speak about my experiences

and what's happening around me, then what's the use? Then it will be just like a prison. So that's why I've decided to speak. And he essentially told me he was arrested for participating in the protests. So they came at 1 a.m. on that night. Me and my mother, we were actually awake.

My father was asleep. They knocked on the door, very harsh. My father woke up. He opened the door. They came in. It was people from the Ministry of Intelligence. And they had no arrest warrant, nothing. Only one sentence came out of their mouth about what I had done that I was being arrested for.

They said that I have published a call for protest, but actually I had not. They were very much disrespectful in their behavior, in their talking, in their shouting, and they took me by force into the car. And they took my phone and they said, what's your password? I refused to give them my password. And then they started hitting me. They beat me. And they basically did not abide by any law while they were taking me into detention.

But wait, if he was arrested, how are you talking to him now? He's out on bail now, which is something the government actually does pretty frequently. They are known to arrest protesters, release them on bail so that these charges are hanging over them. And it helps them keep people off of the streets, but also out of the prisons if they're needing to move lots of people through, which is what they've been doing. Okay, so S has been arrested, and he's out on bail, just waiting to see what happens. Tell me about him. Who is he? I'd like to ask you some questions just about your own story. If you can just tell us whatever you feel comfortable sharing, what can you tell us about your background before this year?

I was born in Tehran. I was grown up in a religious family. I studied my elementary, secondary, and high school in Tehran. So we can't share too many details about this person because we're trying to keep him safe. But what I can tell you is that he is certainly young. Since I was a kid, I was interested in reading books, studying and reading was one of my main interests. And like a lot of people his age and his generation, he had a sort of political awakening while he was in school.

And I started to read more and learn more about what was happening around me in Iran. And that developed my knowledge and my political understanding of my country. So when the protests start in mid-September, he's there immediately, he's on the streets, and soon finds himself in the crosshairs of the government and taken to prison. And what does he tell you about prison? He was taken to a notorious prison in Tehran, the country's capital. It's called Evin Prison. It houses hundreds of political dissidents, student activists, anyone who has posed some sort of challenge to the regime. I was detained at Ward 241 for about 21 days, almost three weeks.

He described in detail his experience in one particular ward called 241, which I learned is where they were bringing a lot of these protesters. I was constantly being interrogated. At times I was kept at the solitary confinement. And some of these prisoners faced interrogations. So the arrestee would be interrogated either every day or once in a few days. The whole process happens while the prisoner has been blindfolded. All the movings, all the interrogations, everything like that.

He told me that he was not personally mistreated during these interrogations, but that he heard plenty of other protesters through the walls of this ward who were under much more pressure. My interrogations were mainly questions and answers. But while I was in downstairs, I heard with my own ears, interrogators were shouting at prisoners and they were humiliating them. And I heard what sounded like abuse. It is a terrorizing atmosphere down there. And so while S is being held in there, the Iranian government starts rolling out these trials for prisoners. What are trials like in Iran? Many of these trials are not open to the public,

particularly the ones that are handled by the Revolutionary Court. The defendants are often represented by government-appointed lawyers, evidence is shoddy at best, and often includes confessions which are made under pressure or torture. or torture. And so in November, the government starts issuing these harsh sentences and some protesters are sentenced to death. One of the first protesters to receive the death sentence was a man named Mohsen Shikari. He was accused of a number of things, Protesters to receive the death sentence was a man named Mohsen Shikari.

He was accused of a number of things, including blocking a road, threatening public safety. The most important, attacking a member of the Basij, which is a volunteer militia operating under the government. So I got to know Mohsen from the general section of Ward 241. And it turns out that during his time in prison, S has actually crossed paths with Mohsen. How did he describe him? He was a young man. He was a quiet man at the age of 23 years old with very little hair on his head. He said he was quiet, that he was generous. And sometimes we would have very short conversations together.

Most of his conversations, you know, were about his interests, his hobbies, the games that he used to play as a kid, as a young teenager. And he was hoping that once he was going out, he would be, you know, starting to play new games. And that he had a lot of hopes for his sentence being lessened and for his future once he got out of prison. And we saw the way he behaved himself. And this person was a nice human being. Sometimes when they were bringing food into the section and the food would not be enough for everyone, I saw myself that Mohsen shared his food, a very small portion that would not feed

one person. He would share it with other inmates. So after 21 days of being in prison, S is eventually released on bail. So I was released, but Mohsen remained there. And on December 8th, Mohsen Chakari becomes the first known protester to be executed. Less than three weeks after his sentence, he was hanged to death. Later in that day, there's an excruciating video that starts circulating on social media of a woman who's said to be Mohsen's mother out in the streets screaming his name. I can basically summarize the feelings and the sentiments after Mohsen's execution in a number of words. Anger.

What we've seen is really a wave of videos that purport to show fresh protests inside Iran. Sorrow. Residents silently march through the town. The police watch from the side. But mainly anger among all the people that I knew, every people that they also used to know Mohsen. In one of the videos, you can hear the protesters chanting,

Death to the dictator! Death to the dictator! The execution of protesters is unlikely to quell this rebellion. What will happen, it's a good question. The clerics who run Iran have been rattled by public displays of defiance. But they won't give way without a fight. We are not sure about tomorrow. So we can't say what will exactly follow. But one thing that is for sure is that this will continue.

So Cora, what's happening right now in Iran? So far there have been four executions that we know of, all men, three in their early 20s, including Shaqari, and one in his late 30s. There are more executions that are expected. Thousands have been arrested, hundreds have been killed. And as far as the movement is concerned, we're now four months into the protests and the demonstrations have essentially quieted. Quieted? So are the protests over? It's really too soon to tell. On the face of it, it looks like this could be a win for the government. The streets look very different right now. At the height of the movement, we were seeing dozens of protests a day,

and now there are only a handful. The university campuses, which were the important hubs for sustaining the movement, they're now being heavily surveilled and policed. And people can't afford to stay out in the streets. Inflation, which was already high, has gotten worse over the course of the demonstrations. The currency has plummeted since September. It's all putting people under even more stress.

So it does seem like for now the climate of fear is working. It does seem like for now the climate of fear is working, but we're definitely not seeing a full acceptance from the Iranian population. There are a lot of Iranians that are still incredibly upset with the regime. They insist that the movement lives on, that the pressure from the government has not extinguished their anger. If anything, the executions have totally inflamed it. And we are seeing groups that are showing up to prisons where protesters are on death row to protest the executions. Dismissing the hijab law is still a criminal offense in Iran, but women throughout the country, especially in the capital, Tehran,

they're refusing to cover their hair. So it seems no matter what happens with the protests, no matter how they're resolved, they seem to have fundamentally shaped the relationship between the Iranian government and its people. Cora, thank you. Thank you. When fighting a totalitarian state, there will always be fear, but we have decided to face it. We know that certain things in life are worth making sacrifices for, and no matter how severe the fear from the government is,

it is undermined when we remember the values that we are fighting for. This is my only way forward. We'll be right back. Here's what else you should know today. We understand and acknowledge the grief that the friends and family of Tyree Nichols are experiencing right now, as well as the great concern throughout all of Memphis and Shelby County about this case. In Memphis on Thursday, five police officers have been charged with murder in the beating death of a 29-year-old black man during a traffic stop this month. Tyree Nichols was stopped for suspected reckless driving.

The confrontation that followed was captured on video. Nichols died three days later. The city's police chief has called the officers' actions a, quote, failing of basic humanity. The five officers, who are all also Black, were fired last week. The charges against them include second-degree murder. Today's episode was produced by Eric Krupke and Rochelle Banja, with help from Mary Wilson. It was edited by Liz O'Balin with help from Lisa Chow.

Fact-checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Alicia Baitube, Dan Powell, and Marian Lozano. And was engineered by Chris Wood. Special thanks to Nilou Tabrizi, Ishan Javeri, and Hayley Willis. Our theme music is by Jim Brumberg and Ben Landsberg of Wonderly. The Daily is made by Rachel Quester, Lindsay Garrison, Claire Tannisketter, Paige Cowett, Michael Simon-Johnson, Brad Fisher, Chris Wood, Jessica Chung, Thank you. Special thanks to Cliff Levy, Dave Shaw, Lauren Jackson, Julia Simon, Mahima Chablani, Des Ibequa, Wendy Doerr, Elizabeth Davis-Moore, Jeffrey Miranda, Renan Barelli, and Maddie Messiello.

That's it for The Daily. I'm Sabrina Tavernisi. See you on Monday.