"Don't Forget Us": One Iranian Man’s Secret Starlink Message to Israel and America

Despite near-total internet disconnection lasting over 280 hours, a man named Ali from Mashhad managed to speak exclusively with N12 via a friend's Starlink connection, describing life under intensifying repression, economic collapse, and daily brutality by the ayatollahs' regime. He emphasized how difficult it is to get any message out. "The world really does not know what is happening in Iran right now because the regime is doing everything it can to prevent information from leaking out. The internet is cut off, communication is silenced except what the tyrannical regime controls, and people are afraid to speak," he said.

Ali explained that his brief window to talk came only because one friend has Starlink access, a rare exception among millions. "He gave me just a few minutes. These are the minutes we have so our voice can be heard." He described a population pushed beyond fear of death itself. "While I am talking to you, Iranian citizens are being killed. Thousands are falling at the hands of a cruel and merciless regime. The images you see reflect reality, they do not even come close to it. These are only a drop in an ocean of horrors happening here."

He continued, "In this difficult economic situation, death sometimes looks like a better choice than continuing to live under the shadow of an oppressive and merciless regime." This despair drove people to the streets. "We went out to the streets empty-handed and knowingly risked our lives in demonstrations because we no longer had anything to lose. Continuing to live like this was no longer possible. The cruel forces crushed us."

When asked how Iranians react to regime claims of foreign instigation, Ali rejected the narrative outright. "Even the regime in Iran understood that this time it was not just another ordinary protest, so they tried to blame outside forces as if someone from outside, from America or Mossad, sent us to the streets. But who stole the people's money? Who destroyed our lives? Foreigners or themselves? No one goes to the streets for a foreign country's interests."

He concluded with a direct plea. "Whoever went to the street went for one thing: freedom. We are thirsty for freedom. Do not forget us. America, Israel, and the whole world, that is the only thing we ask of you." Ali's words, delivered in stolen minutes, capture the suffocating reality inside Iran where ordinary citizens face daily terror while the world receives only fragments of their struggle.