By Julia Cardi and Kara Berg, The Detroit News
Iranian Americans in southeast Michigan fear for the safety of friends and family still living in Iran amid a death toll from weeks-long protests estimated in the thousands and want Iranians to know they support their calls for regime change and demand for civil rights.
Some said they want their voices to be heard and are calling on President Donald Trump’s administration to put pressure on the Iranian government. They describe the horror they’ve heard of protesters getting killed amid an internet blackout, some shot like “cattle.”
Experts are describing it as the bloodiest crackdown on dissent since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, when the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his forces overthrew the shah, Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi, over his political repression and westernizing policies that included the empowerment of women and the promotion of the Persian language.
“We have videos that are so graphic. Every morning I wake up, I see that scene in my head,” said Shirin Harisy, 46, of Southfield, referencing images that have emerged showing bodies of dead protesters piled in Iran’s streets. “Every night I sleep, I see it in my head. … How did they see all this? My immediate family? None of them died, thankfully, but all of them know someone that got killed.”
Harisy was among about 100 people who gathered Sunday in Plymouth at the Metropolitan Seventh-Day Adventist Church to honor those killed in Iran during weeks of violent suppression of protests of the country’s leadership amid an economic collapse.
A table held candles, flowers and photos of some Iranian citizens who have died. Some attendees wore the Iranian flag used until the overthrow of the country’s monarchy in 1979, which features a lion-and-sun emblem on a tricolor background of green, white and red stripes.
Attendees said they want to show their support for people in Iran risking their lives to protest, and condemned the government’s longstanding oppression of human rights.
“We want our voices to be heard. We want to support those people in Iran and to tell them that they’re not alone,” said Anisa Afkami, who recently moved to Taylor from Phoenix, Ariz. “You know, people have been protesting, they’ve been getting killed, and we just want to say that we are supporting them. And to say that we’re supporting Iran is to say that we’re supporting all humans who are under this oppression.”
The Census Bureau said in 2023 the Lebanese, Iranian and Egyptian populations represented nearly half of the 3.5 million people in the United States who reported having Middle Eastern and North African (MENA) descent in the 2020 census. That year was the first census to specifically ask for MENA responses. The U.S. population during the same year was 331.5 million.
Fallout from crackdown emerges
The demonstrations began Dec. 28 at Tehran’s historic Grand Bazaar, initially over the collapse of Iran’s currency, the rial, and then spread. Iran’s government does not recognize the right of citizens to peacefully protest.
Ali Akbar Pourjamshidian, a deputy interior minister speaking on state TV on Jan. 21, acknowledged the violence began in earnest on Jan. 8.
“More than 400 cities were involved,” Pourjamshidian said.
By Jan. 9, Revolutionary Guard Gen. Hossein Yekta, previously identified as leading plainclothes units of the force, went on Iranian state TV and warned “mothers and fathers” to keep their children home.
A violent crackdown by the Iranian government on protests across the country led to thousands of people killed and tens of thousands of arrests, though more exact estimates have varied. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Sunday estimated the deaths at 5,848, expected to rise. It said more than 41,280 people have been arrested.
The Associated Press reported Iran’s government has said 3,117 have died. However, the AP said Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from civil unrest in the past.
Mosques and government offices have been damaged by fires, while banks have been torched and their ATMs smashed. Officials estimate the damage to be at least $125 million, according to an Associated Press tally of reports by the state-run IRNA news agency from over 20 cities.
The estimated death toll has continued to rise since the demonstrations ended, as information emerges amid an internet blackout that has lasted more than two weeks. The organizer of Sunday’s memorial, who asked not to be named for fear of retaliation against her family members who still live in Iran, said funeral homes and doctors in Iran have been reporting the deaths of protesters to human rights organizations in Europe as they’re able.
“We are recreating history right now,” Afkami said. “People are asking for freedom of the oppression and the regime that they’ve been under for 47 years.”
Trump-Iran faceoff
The government’s violent suppression of protesters has caused simmering tensions between Iran and the United States to escalate.
On Jan. 13, Trump said he was cutting off the prospect of talks with Iranian officials during the demonstration crackdown and told Iranian citizens that “help is on its way.” Trump said last week the actions by the U.S. would make last June’s strikes on Iranian nuclear sites “look like peanuts.”
An American aircraft carrier and warships are approaching the Middle East, which gives the president the ability to launch another attack on Iran after bombing its nuclear enrichment sites last year.
Some local Iranian Americans would like to see the U.S. intervene to bring Reza Pahlavi, an exiled son of the last ruler of Iran’s monarchy who lives in the U.S., back to the country. He is an outspoken activist critical of the current Iranian government.
“The mindset that (demonstrators) have right now is, either Pahlavi or death,” said Afkani, who attended Sunday’s memorial. “So for them it really doesn’t matter because to end the regime is enough for the next generations.”
Zahra Assar-Nossoni, who works as a biotech director and lifestyle content creator, said she thinks the Trump administration could influence Iran’s government by not recognizing the current regime and refusing to negotiate.
“That’s all Iranians want, because we don’t see any future with this kind of regime,” said Assar-Nossoni, whose parents live in the United States, though she has family and friends still in Iran. “What I want for my people in Iran, I want peace. I don’t want any war. I don’t want them to suffer more.”
