Local Iranians are stuck waiting to hear from family and friends in the country as the government brutally cracks down on its citizens.
After widespread demonstrations for the last two weeks, the Islamic Republic has imposed a dayslong communication blackout on its own people. Residents are only able to make calls sporadically, or often only if they know someone with a landline, and can’t access large portions of the internet.
Demonstrators in Iran are protesting economic and political disarray, and relations with Israel. Thousands of protesters have been killed, and Iran’s government is expected to execute an anti-government protester Wednesday.
GBH News spoke with Saqar, a Northeastern University student who grew up in Iran .GBH News agreed to use only her first name due to fears that her family will face retribution for her speech in Iran.
Saqar hasn’t been able to reach her family for three days, and only sporadically before. A friend who had spoken to Saqar’s family relayed that they were safe, she said.
“That person said they were OK, but the lines might be monitored by the government, so a lot of people tend to not speak and give details about what’s going on,” Saqar told GBH News.
Saqar said she’s not sure if her family has been involved with protests.
“I don’t know if they’re feeling OK because the massive internet shutdown, which the government repeatedly uses to isolate people,” she said.
Massachusetts resident Naghmeh Sohrabi is an Iranian American who left the country when she was 4 years old. Now, she’s a professor of Middle East history with a focus on modern Iran at Brandeis University.
She said protests, which began more than two weeks ago, were sparked by the massive devaluation of Iranian currency against the dollar. Financial pressures have been rising for people in the aftermath of the June 2025 Iran-Israel war, she said.
“This drop in the currency really made it impossible for ... normal people to be able to just handle the cost of living,” she said.
Sohrabi’s most recent conversations with friends a few days ago focused on what was next for the country.
“People really felt there were no options left — like, nothing,” Sohrabi said. “I had one friend who said, ‘You know, I’m not a monarchist, but let the son of the deposed shah come. If he’s going to save us, I am fine with that. I just don’t want these people in charge.’”
That was in reference to Reza Pahlavi, son of Iran’s former Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
The elder Pahlavi was deposed in 1979 in the revolution led by Islamist Ruhollah Khomeini, and died in 1980. Iran, known officially as the Islamic Republic of Iran, is now a religious theocracy.
Reza Pahlavi has lived in exile for decades, including in the United States, advocating for secular democracy and nonviolent resistance.
That has changed in recent days. Pahlavi is now calling for Iranians to “prepare for seizing the centers of cities and holding them” on social media.
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said “Help is on its way” without providing further details of what that could look like, and warned of the United States taking “very strong action” Wednesday if Iran executes protesters.
Local Iranian American Farhad Dokhani has a doctorate in Middle Eastern studies from Harvard University. He has “strong hesitation” about foreign intervention into Iran and the Pahlavi family returning to power.
“Whatever the people of Iran decide, I think, is the most important,” he said. “The people who actually live there and who will be affected by it.”
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says over 2,400 protesters have been killed in anti-government demonstrations in the past two weeks. Interviewees and news reports note that figure could be much higher, but verification is difficult with the communications blackout.
“I’m also very much worried and very concerned about innocent lives being killed — Iranians,” he added. “That’s extremely depressing and worrying and frustrating and infuriating.”
