The young Iranian man with chiseled features and thick, sculpted hair was passionate about watches, taught his parents watchmaking, and dreamed one day of running his own watch gallery in Tehran.
Family videos show Ali Manouchehr-Abadi smiling while holding a cake at a party. In a studio portrait, he wears a confident look – and a shirt depicting medieval Islamic warriors, a clear tribute to past Persian glory and identity.
But Mr. Manouchehr-Abadi’s bright future came to an abrupt end on Jan. 8. Iranian security forces shot him in the head, as they moved under the cover of an internet blackout to crush nationwide anti-regime protests with live fire that left thousands dead.
Why We Wrote This
As Iran urges attendance at rallies Wednesday marking the anniversary of the revolution, many citizens could not be further estranged. On one side are grieving families and others infuriated by the regime’s brutality. On the other, officials who voice no regret.
The young man’s father, a shopkeeper, was protesting alongside his son that night and raced with him to find care. The family later found the 21-year-old’s remains among body bags piled at a city morgue.
“We will forever seek justice for these martyrs and continue their path” for change, says a close relative in Tehran who asked not to be named, to minimize the risk of retribution.
Iran’s two-day crackdown – unprecedented in recent history for its scale, speed, and ferocity – has left Iranians shocked, further solidifying the polarization between so many of the country’s citizens and the Islamic Republic that rules their lives.
Wednesday marks the 47th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the pro-West Shah, and – as in every previous year – officials are declaring “victory” over enemies and have mobilized mass marches.
But Iranians say this anniversary resonates like no other. The level of state violence in January has irreversibly torn Iran’s social contract, and the government acknowledges it has no solution to the economic crises that triggered the protests.
Also casting a pall: Israel and the United States attacked Iran in June, and for more than two years since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has systematically degraded Iran’s regional militia allies. Currently, U.S. President Donald Trump has deployed a “massive armada,” which he threatens will strike Iran if it does not shackle its strategic nuclear and missile capacities.
Call to “disappoint the enemy”
Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei – in a speech recorded at an undisclosed location, apparently due to the risk of U.S. military action – said on Monday the annual marches have been “unparalleled” in the world. He called upon Iranians to “disappoint the enemy” with a mass turnout.
Mr. Khamenei, whose position is meant to be infallible as “God’s representative on Earth,” did not repeat previous claims of protesters engaged in “sedition,” saying Iranian “morality and piousness” would show “faithfulness” to the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s younger generation bore the brunt of the mass killings, carried out by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and its ideological Basij militia. By Monday, activists confirmed nearly 7,000 deaths, with 11,730 still under investigation.
Among them was Mr. Manouchehr-Abadi, whose family’s agony illustrates the depth of Iran’s deep divisions. Anyone who can now celebrate the Islamic Republic’s 47th birthday, they say, is “repugnant.”
Yet, the family refrained from an often-used graveside act of protest against Iran’s hard-line rulers – dancing – at the funeral of this young man. Many bereaved families, in final shows of defiance that have gone viral online, celebrate lost loved ones with forbidden music and dancing, instead of traditional tears of Shiite mourning.
This family was not asked to pay the notorious “bullet fee” of $3,500 to retrieve their son, nor to sign a “pledge of silence,” like many others. Nor were they forced to agree to publicly portray their son as a loyalist basiji, killed while battling Israeli- and American-backed “terrorist” agents – the regime’s narrative to justify the killings.
But there was a reason they walked silently and broken, as they put Mr. Manouchehr-Abadi to rest, says the relative.
“We were afraid they might take the body away from us and prevent the burial. … I don’t even know what I feel, I am numb,” she says, adding that no one “with a conscience” could now take part in the anniversary of 1979.
“For me, that day is the most hateful day in our history, after what happened,” says the relative. “I see that day as the day of captivity, when the sentence of our enslavement as Iranians has been issued.”
Push to increase turnout
The contrast could hardly be greater between the fury of grieving families and Iranian authorities, who so far offer no expressions of regret for the bloodshed. Instead, they boast of “defeating” a U.S.-Israeli coup plot.
Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor/File
To encourage high rally turnout, state-run television has broadcast steady reports about “public enthusiasm” for the celebration. For decades, officials have equated high turnout with a popular vote of confidence. Scenes recently broadcast have promoted attending rallies as a family tradition, with parents recalling “great memories,” and kids waving flags.
“Of course, I will certainly be there, just for our Iran at this critical juncture,” says one woman interviewed on the street for a prime-time bulletin. “Despite all our grievances and complaints, we have a duty to declare allegiance to the country and push away the threat of war.”
The judiciary might also be coercing rally attendance. Reports are emerging that families of some of the 51,790 Iranians arrested have been told that, if they seek leniency, they will be forced to attend the rallies and post videos of their participation.
Hard-line officials have cast January’s deadly crackdown in existential terms and used religious justifications. In a speech days after the crackdown, IRGC strategist Hassan Abbasi cited verses from the Quran.
“Allah is telling us to kill as many people as possible, until the sedition is no more … so that what remains is nothing but God’s religion,” he said.
“What is that sedition here? Well, they martyred clerics, they martyred basijis, IRGC members, nurses, kids, ordinary people … pure evil,” Mr. Abbasi claimed. With the purging of the unbelievers and the corrupt, he averred, “Society can now breathe. It is cleared up and in relief after their termination.”
Charges levied against protesters include moharebeh – waging war against God – which can lead to a death sentence.
Crackdown was a “great betrayal”
But prominent figures have spoken out against the regime’s crackdown.
The violence was a “great betrayal and crime” of revolutionary ideals, wrote former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest for leading the Green Movement protests against the stolen 2009 election, which he was set to win.
“In what language should people say that they do not want this [Islamic Republic] system and do not believe your lies? Enough is enough. The game is over. Your acts of oppression have caught up with you,” Mr. Mousavi wrote on Jan. 30, in a rare statement.
“When you put on battle dress against your own nation, you were striking an axe at your own roots,” he wrote. “Your turn has come. Nothing will remain of you but a story – a story full of blood and violence.”
Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA/Reuters
Videos persist of funerals in which mourners chant, “Khamenei is a murderer, his rule is illegitimate; this is the year of blood, Sayyed Ali [Khamenei] will be toppled.”
“No doubt these protests were a new form in the expression of fury, and what do you expect? People in my city are extremely poor,” says one protester from the western city of Khorramabad, who asked that his name not be used.
“We thought the time has come and this can’t go on forever,” says the protester, who describes regime forces provoking demonstrators “even in the most peaceful rallies,” and witnessing two basiji militiamen smashing an ATM machine.
“It’s hard to say if some people will ever find an off-ramp from what they went through,” he says. A relative of his wife lost a brother and a cousin, and their families “will be carrying this pain with them forever.”
“For now, the regime is celebrating its victory over us, ‘the Israeli mercenaries.’ But honestly, can they sell themselves the same story and believe it?” asks the protester.
“They know that the gap will never, ever be bridged again. They will be dealing with a much more alienated society,” he concludes. “We will never be the same as who we were before.”
An Iranian researcher contributed to this report.