As details of the death toll for January’s protests continue to emerge, three students explain why they are resisting a return to normality
More than 45 days after a brutal January crackdown that left thousands of Iranian protesters dead, students across several universities are protesting again. As Iran’s new academic term began on Saturday, students in Tehran gathered on campus, chanting anti-government slogans, despite a heavy security presence and plainclothes officers stationed outside university gates.
The Guardian spoke to protesting students about why they were rallying despite the fact that thousands had been killed and tens of thousands arrested in the January demonstrations.
“Our classrooms are empty because the graveyards are full,” said Hossein*, 21, a student at the University of Tehran. “It’s for them – our friends, classmates and compatriots, who were gunned down in front of our eyes, that we decided to boycott the classes.”
What? You don’t believe “Hossein, 21”, they named him and everything! You want to see actual evidence! You can’t believe that I’m 2026 not a single person recorded a video of said massacres on their phone?
The Iranian government cut off internet and satellite connections nationwide during the massacres. And some videos did still manage to leak out.
That’s not how satellite connection works, though? The US smuggled 6000 starlink terminals into Iran.
Frequencies can be jammed, you know…
Not country-wide…
But in all the cities where it matters
You cannot frequency jam an entire city either bruv, the way they were preventing Starlink usage was by detecting emitted radio signals of that frequency and going in person to arrest the users and confiscate the equipment.
The internet has been back for a while now, and there’s no chance nobody could have leaked anything. Israel cut off internet power and was actively bombing every neighborhood of Gaza and footage still got out.
Don’t be silly.
Footage did get out of Iran, you just haven’t looked for it because then you’d have to reconsider your belief in the mullah’s moral pedestal