(waves lapping) ♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: This is Iran.
A rustic the place younger individuals movie and share their lives every single day on social media.
(crowd chanting in Farsi) >> NARRATOR: This can be Iran, an Islamic republic dominated by a supreme non secular chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
♪ ♪ In September 2022, anti-government protests swept throughout the coountry after the dying of a younger lady in police custody.
>> (chanting in Farsi): (weapons firing) >> NARRATOR: In the crackdown that adopted, human rights teams estimate greater than 500 Iranians have been killed, together with 72 youngsters.
>> (chanting in Farsi): >> NARRATOR: Since the beginning, younger Iranians have been filming the violence themselves and posting it on-line.
(weapon firing, individuals screaming) ♪ ♪ Independent and international media are largely banned right here, however “Frontline” has been capable of collect and evaluation over 100 hours of this footage, cross-checking it with testimony from eyewitnesses and protesters… >> The sound of the man respiratory whereas he raped me nonetheless echoes in my ears.
>> NARRATOR: …and following activists and exiles who’re attempting to show what is going on in Iran.
>> (shouting and cheering) >> (talking Farsi): >> (screams) (paintball gun fires) ♪ ♪ >> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: Awin Mostafazadeh is a human rights activist who fled Iran in 2007.
For years, her group has been working with reporters and different activists inside Iran, documenting abuses in opposition to the Kurdish minority.
On September 13, 2022, she bought information from Tehran {that a} younger Kurdish lady named Mahsa “Zhina” Amini was in a coma after being crushed by Iran’s morality police.
>> (talking Farsi): (system beeps, object bumping in video) >> NARRATOR: Mahsa, who was additionally identified by her Kurdish title, Zhina, was 22 years outdated and about to begin college.
She’d come to Tehran on a day journey.
The morality police– enforcers of Iran’s Islamic costume code– had arrested her accusing her of not being coated appropriately.
As phrase unfold, individuals started to assemble close to the hospital.
Some have been filming on their telephones.
>> (shouting) (talking Farsi): (continues shouting, lady sobbing) (lady 1 shouting in video) >> (talking Farsi): (visitors buzzing, automotive horn honks) >> NARRATOR: Shiva Nazarahari is a human rights activist who was jailed 4 occasions in Iran for anti-government actions.
She fled the nation in 2018, and has been working from exile in Europe.
She agreed to allow us to movie her gathering testimony about what occurred after Mahsa Amini fell right into a coma.
>> (talking Farsi): (compact shuts) >> (talking Farsi): (laughs) >> NARRATOR: Leyla is talking from inside Iran.
>> (talking Farsi): >> LEYLA: >> NARRATOR: Leyla says she rushed to the hospital after she noticed the photograph of Mahsa Amini in a coma on Instagram, and located the gang of protesters gathering there.
The scene was captured on footage we obtained.
>> LEYLA: >> NARRATOR: On September 16, information bought out that Mahsa Amini had died.
A feminine journalist bought into the hospital and photographed her grieving kinfolk.
The image unfold rapidly on Twitter.
>> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: The Iranian authorities didn’t grant any interviews for this movie, or reply to an inventory of questions.
Shortly after Mahsa Amini’s dying, Tehran’s police launched edited CCTV footage of her collapsing at a police station.
They denied beating her and stated she’d had a coronary heart assault, they usually’d executed the whole lot to maintain her alive.
>> (talking Farsi): (lady screaming, man shouting) >> NARRATOR: Before her dying, movies exhibiting abuses by the morality police had been circulating on Iranian social media, fueling resentment in opposition to the regime.
In some circumstances, the federal government stated it had punished officers concerned.
>> (talking Farsi): (lady screaming) >> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): ♪ ♪ (crowd chanting in Kurdish) >> (sobbing, talking Kurdish) (crowd chanting in Kurdish) >> NARRATOR: At the funeral within the Kurdish city of Saqqez, mourners started to chant, “Woman, life, freedom.”
(crowd chanting) It would turn out to be the slogan of a brand new motion which might rapidly unfold past the Kurdish minority and rally girls throughout the nation.
>> (talking Farsi): (crowd chanting in Kurdish) (crowd cheering and applauding) >> NARRATOR: After footage of the funeral unfold on social media, girls took to the streets, filming their very own acts of defiance.
>> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): (automotive horns honking, individuals whistling) >> NARRATOR: The protests started to unfold across the nation.
>> (chanting in Farsi): >> NARRATOR: In the weeks that adopted, girls throughout Iran eliminated their hijabs.
(automotive horns honking) >> (talking Farsi): (crowd cheering and applauding) (crowd cheering in video) (crowd clapping in rhythm and chanting) (crowd cheers and applauds) (crowd chanting in Farsi) (crowd cheers and applauds) ♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Before Iran grew to become an Islamic republic, it was dominated by the Western-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
His regime was repressive, and employed a brutal safety service that imprisoned opponents.
But girls had the suitable to decorate freely and be a considerable a part of the workforce.
(glass shatters) (bottles clinking) (crowd chanting in Farsi) After a revolution in 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini took energy and the structure was rewritten to replicate Islamic regulation.
(crowd chanting in Farsi) The hijab was made obligatory for all girls in public.
>> In Iran, girls marched in help of a contemporary id.
>> (chanting in Farsi) >> The shah pulled the chador down by pressure.
These individuals are placing it up by pressure.
>> Men finally attacked the protesters.
Several of the ladies who stood their floor with appreciable braveness have been stabbed.
>> (chanting in Farsi) >> NARRATOR: In the many years that adopted, girls have repeatedly risen up in protest.
After the dying of Mahsa Amini, he dismissed the protests as a plot by Iran’s enemies.
>> (chanting in Farsi): >> NARRATOR: But the unrest continued to unfold.
Protesters have been burning their hijabs and sharing the footage with the world.
♪ ♪ (crowd chanting in Farsi) >> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): (crowd cheers and applauds) (chanting in Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): (crowd cheers and applauds) ♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Zar Amir Ebrahimi was as soon as a well-known TV actor in Iran.
In 2008, she fled the nation after a non-public intimate video was leaked.
She was sentenced to 99 lashes and banned from showing on tv.
(viewers cheers and applauds) She is now a world film star.
>> (talking Farsi): (individuals speaking in background) >> NARRATOR: Zar has been gathering testimony from inside Iran concerning the rebellion, and sharing it with journalists and human rights organizations.
>> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: Nasrin had a teenage daughter, Nika.
>> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): (laughing with viewers) (singing, viewers clapping and cheering) (stops singing, laughing) (singing): (woman speaking from viewers) (resumes singing): >> (talking Farsi): >> (singing softly and babbling) >> (talking Farsi in video): >> (talking Farsi) >> (talking Farsi in interview): >> (chanting in Farsi): >> NARRATOR: On September 20, Nika joined a protest in Tehran.
Footage we have verified reveals her waving her headband and setting it on hearth.
(crowd chanting and cheering) (chanting continues) >> (talking Farsi): (crowd cheering) >> NARRATOR: More footage shot that day reveals Nika throwing rocks within the path of the police.
Another clip, recorded that night time, reveals Nika nonetheless on the protest, taking cowl behind a automotive.
>> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: Nika’s household says her Instagram and Telegram accounts have been deleted that night time.
>> (talking Farsi): (sighs) >> NARRATOR: Nika’s dying certificates said that she “died as a consequence of a number of accidents attributable to the influence of a tough object.”
>> CNN has regarded on the remaining hours of Iranian teenager Nika Shakarami, who was among the many many protesters on the streets days after Amini’s dying.
>> NARRATOR: Her dying grew to become a world information story.
First, they informed her household she’d been killed by an opposition group.
Then state media revealed CCTV footage purporting to point out Nika getting into a constructing after the protest.
>> (talking Farsi): NARRATOR: They claimed she later jumped, or was pushed, off the roof.
>> (talking Farsi): ♪ ♪ (chanting in Farsi, clapping in rhythm) >> (talking Farsi): (in interview): ♪ ♪ (individuals clamoring, automotive horns honking) >> NARRATOR: The regime went on the offensive.
(siren wailing in distance) (individuals screaming, weapons firing) According to a leaked Iranian military doc, on September 21, safety items throughout the nation got an order to “severely and critically confront rioters.”
They arrested the reporter who had revealed the photograph of Mahsa Amini’s grieving household, and her Twitter account was suspended.
They additionally started to limit web entry throughout the nation… >> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): >> WOMAN: (system buzzes, individuals shouting) >> NARRATOR: …and to take away footage of the rebellion from social media websites by forcing protesters to shut their accounts.
(individuals shouting) (weapon fires) (gun fires) >> (talking Farsi): (weapons firing) >> NARRATOR: But movies of the crackdown continued to unfold.
(males shouting) >> (talking Farsi): (shouting continues) (lady screaming) >> (gasps, talking Farsi) >> (talking Farsi): (car horns honking, protesters clamoring) >> NARRATOR: This clip was filmed on the night time of September 21.
(honking continues) (bike engine revving) >> (talking Farsi): (individuals shouting and whistling, visitors buzzing) (video continues) (horns honking, man talking Farsi) (gun fires) ♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: The man was recognized by Iranian activists as Pooria Alipour, a 30-year-old constructing engineer.
He survived the assault.
Iranian police have stated they’re investigating the video and that “the offending cops will definitely be handled in response to the regulation.”
>> (talking Farsi) >> (talking Farsi, laughs) >> (laughs) >> NARRATOR: Sarina Esmailzadeh was a teenage YouTuber from town of Karaj.
Her movies have been about meals, make-up, and music.
>> (talking Farsi): (cheers) >> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: In the months earlier than the rebellion, a few of Sarina’s posts have been about politics.
Footage filmed there throughout the early days of the rebellion reveals safety forces beating individuals on the streets.
(firing) (lady chanting, vehicles honking) On September 22, Sarina joined one of many protest.
(individuals shouting) (weapon firing) She by no means returned.
Human rights teams say that Sarina died of head accidents, like Nika.
Eyewitnesses informed native activists she was crushed to dying with police batons.
>> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): (tone beeping) >> (chanting in Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: As information of the deaths of Sarina and Nika unfold, one thing exceptional occurred.
Schoolgirls throughout Iran started to carry protests of their very own.
(women chanting in Farsi) Despite web blackouts imposed by the federal government, movies went viral exhibiting extraordinary acts of defiance.
Schoolgirls filmed and shared footage of themselves defacing photos of the supreme leader– against the law beneath Iranian regulation.
>> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): >> (cheering) >> (chanting in Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): (women shouting in Farsi) >> NARRATOR: In Sadra High School in Karaj, the scholars chased away a authorities official.
(women chanting) >> (chanting): >> (cheering) >> (talking Farsi): >> (chanting in Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): >> (chanting in Farsi): (automotive horns honking) >> (talking Farsi): (automotive horns honking) >> (talking Farsi): Okay.
>> NARRATOR: Even in exile, the Kurdish activist Awin Mostafazadeh is commonly on the transfer between protected homes.
She fears she could possibly be arrested and forcibly returned to Iran.
(door unlocking) >> (talking Farsi): (automotive horns honking) >> NARRATOR: From the very starting, Iran’s Kurdistan province was the epicenter of the rebellion.
Mahsa Amini’s dying had infected long-held grievances right here.
For many years, Iranian Kurds have accused the regime of discrimination.
Amid escalating clashes between protesters and safety forces the regime launched a sequence of offensives within the Kurdish areas.
Awin has been gathering proof about what occurred.
>> (clapping in rhythm, chanting) >> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: Yahya, who’s now in exile, was one of many protest leaders within the metropolis of Mahabad.
(sirens wailing) >> (talking Farsi): (weapons firing) (man shouting in world language) >> (talking Farsi): (weapons firing) (man exclaiming in world language) (weapons firing) (lady screams in distance) (computerized weapons firing, lady gasping softly) (sobbing) (weapons hearth, individuals screaming in distance) >> (talking Farsi): (weapons firing) >> NARRATOR: In a press release on the time, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard stated it was confronting “terrorist separatist teams” within the Kurdish areas, and that “dealing decisively with terrorists is our mandate.”
(explosion kilos in distance) (weapons firing, man panting) (man murmuring) (weapons firing, man panting) So far, Awin says she has confirmed the deaths of a minimum of 125 protesters in Kurdish cities for the reason that begin of the crackdown.
She’s been speaking to eyewitnesses like Keivan, a medical scholar.
He was working with a staff of volunteers to deal with wounded protesters, and has since fled Iran.
>> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: Keivan says he was arrested for serving to the protesters and brought to a secret detention heart.
His account of what occurred subsequent is horrific.
>> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): >> (talking Farsi): ♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: Iran has denied abusing prisoners, however Keivan’s account echoes the testimony of many different detainees.
Since the start of the rebellion, hundreds of protesters have been arrested and locked up in regime black websites or police stations, just like the one on this video from town of Karaj, posted on-line in September.
>> NARRATOR: Zar is taking the testimony of a person who continues to be inside Iran and requested for his id to be hid.
He says he was held in a black website within the Northwest of of the nation after being arrested at a protest in October.
>> (talking Farsi): >> (sniffles) >> NARRATOR: In November, the crackdown escalated.
>> (talking Farsi): (viewers responding) >> NARRATOR: The regime started to prosecute protesters.
Many have been charged with the non secular crime of moharebeh– waging warfare in opposition to God.
(singing in Farsi, guitar taking part in) >> (talking Farsi): >> NARRATOR: In his trial, he was additionally accused of blocking a highway and attacking a regime militiaman.
Mohsen was convicted of waging warfare in opposition to God and was executed by hanging on the morning of December 8.
>> (wailing in Farsi): (screaming) (sobbing) >> NARRATOR: Footage from that day reveals a member of the family mourning his dying.
The video went viral.
Seven others have been on dying row.
♪ ♪ The mass road protests have died down for now.
(man singing) >> NARRATOR: But the rebellion continues with a whole lot of small acts of defiance.
♪ ♪ >> Whooo!
♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (music fades) >> NARRATOR: Families of the useless proceed to talk out, regardless of the dangers.
>> (talking Farsi): ♪ ♪ >> (sighs) (talking Farsi): ♪ ♪