Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
—
Farzat had no intention of becoming a taxi driver.
He also dabbled in politics while studying law in Tehran. That was the beginning of his troubles, he told CNN.
He has been arrested and imprisoned four times in the past nine years, most recently on charges of “contact with a hostile state.” He denies the charges and will be sentenced to seven years in prison.
The university expelled him because of his “criminal” history, he explained.
There he became a taxi driver, plying the streets of Karaj, a city near Tehran that has recently been the site of violent anti-government protests.
“I saw regime forces firing live ammunition at people,” he recalled. “The bullets were fired mainly from the abdomen to the genitals. … There were blood stains on the road and three bodies were seen in a 15-minute drive.” The heaviest shootings occurred on January 8 and 9.
Farzat is not his real name. CNN met him in the northeastern Iraqi city of Sulaimaniyah on Friday, days after smugglers took him across towering snow-capped mountains into Iraq. He spoke on condition that CNN not reveal his face for fear of retribution and only use a pseudonym he provided.
Farzat, a soft-spoken man in his mid-30s, is from Iran’s Kurdish minority, which makes up about 10% of the population. He is from eastern Iran but had lived in the Tehran area for years.
The testimonies of people like Farzat are critical to trying to understand what is happening in Iran, where the country has been in a near-total internet and telecommunications blackout for almost 10 days, and international journalists have not been allowed into the country.
He said he joined the wave of protests that rocked Iran in 2022 following the death of 22-year-old Martha Amini in religious police custody. The government’s crackdown at the time was brutal, but it pales in comparison to recent riots, he recalled.
He said security forces “used rubber bullets for the first time in 2022. This time they started shooting protesters directly with live ammunition.” “In one small street (in Karaj), security forces killed at least six protesters and also shot dead a young woman who was chanting from a balcony.”
A hospital in Karaj received more than 80 bodies on the night of January 8, according to eyewitness accounts reported by Amnesty International.
According to the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA), nearly 3,000 people have been killed across the country since Iran began its crackdown on dissidents. CNN cannot independently verify these numbers.
Compared to 2022, Farzat said the level of anger and dissatisfaction is orders of magnitude greater. “The protesters were very angry and destroyed all symbols and signs of the regime,” he said. Even mosques were reportedly targeted.
He was skeptical of promises from a superpower with a checkered past for many Iranians and ignored US President Donald Trump’s pledge that “help is on the way.”
“In his final moments, Mr. Trump raised the hopes of the nation,” he said. “But he may have been making deals with the regime behind the scenes, claiming that ‘the Islamic Republic told me that executions have been halted and everything is fine.'”
Despite this, Farzat believes the current government is living on borrowed time. Iranians have had enough, he said. “Society will not commit suicide by accepting the poverty and misery imposed on it by the regime. The people are far beyond that,” he said.
The harsh realities of Iran today ensure that protests will soon reignite. “People are making at most $200 a month, which is not even enough for four days. People will come back to the city,” Farzat said. Bullets from the regime cannot stop it. ”
