Can You Hear Us?
A witness report from Dublin, where Iranian exiles carried the names of the dead, challenged the silence of the world, and asked why some suffering is remembered while other suffering is ignored.
Yesterday, once again, Iranians gathered in Dublin city centre. To those walking past, it may have looked like another protest, another collection of flags and banners competing for attention on a busy Saturday afternoon. Most people see only those few hours standing in the street. They do not see the days that come before them. They do not see speeches being written and rewritten late into the night. They do not see organisers contacting Gardaí to ensure the gathering can take place safely. They do not see emails sent to journalists asking them to attend. They do not see letters sent to politicians asking them to acknowledge the suffering of the Iranian people. They do not see the emotional weight carried by those attempting to speak on behalf of families who can no longer speak freely for themselves. By the time an Iranian protest begins, countless invisible hours have already been invested in trying to make the world stop for a moment and listen.
The speech we prepared this week began with a simple request. Look at us. Not our flags. Not our politics. Not our banners. Look at us. Because that is all many Iranians have been asking the world to do for years. Look at the mothers carrying photographs of children who never returned home. Look at the fathers holding faces they cannot forget. Look at the exiles who escaped a country thousands of kilometres away yet still spend their weekends standing in public squares carrying grief that crossed borders with them. Why do people who supposedly escaped continue protesting years later? Because many of us are terrified that the world will forget.
The people standing yesterday were not carrying the memory of a government. They were carrying the memory of ordinary people. Students. Workers. Teachers. Parents. Dreamers. Human beings who wanted the same things every person wants: safety, dignity, freedom, opportunity and a future for their children. Yet for nearly half a century millions of Iranians have watched those hopes slowly disappear. Not in a single dramatic moment but gradually, year after year, family after family. Parents worked harder and became poorer. Graduates earned degrees and discovered there was no future waiting for them. Young people postponed marriage because they could not afford a home. Families postponed hope because they could not afford tomorrow. Dreams disappeared quietly until an entire generation began looking beyond Iran's borders simply to imagine a normal life.
Then came the darkness. Internet blackouts. Silence. Families unable to contact loved ones. Mothers staring at phones that no longer connected them to their children. Children waiting for messages that never arrived. Entire cities disappearing from view while the outside world received only fragments of information. Millions of people plunged into digital darkness while governments issued statements, diplomats attended meetings and life elsewhere continued as normal. For the world it was another news cycle. For Iranians it was their lives.
Yesterday, as we tried to tell these stories in Dublin, another reality unfolded around us. Nearby stood a fundraising and solidarity table dedicated to Gaza, decorated with Palestinian flags, keffiyehs and boycott messages. Some of those gathered there directed hostility towards our protest. Voices repeatedly shouted "Shame on you" while our speeches were being delivered. The words were aimed not at governments, not at institutions, but at a gathering of exiles carrying photographs of imprisoned, executed and murdered Iranians. What struck me was not disagreement. Disagreement belongs in a democracy. What struck me was the absence of curiosity. Very few people stopped to ask why hundreds of photographs of young Iranians surrounded us. Very few asked why people who had supposedly escaped Iran still spent their weekends speaking about it. Very few asked why so many faces in the crowd looked exhausted before a single speech had even begun.
At one point a man stood nearby carrying the flag of the Islamic Republic and loudly declared that the regime had won. I remember thinking: won what? A war against unarmed citizens? A victory over schoolchildren, students, workers and grieving families? A victory over mothers searching for sons? A victory over fathers identifying bodies? If that is victory, then language itself has become wounded. Around me I saw faces tighten with pain and disbelief. Not because anyone expected universal agreement, but because there is something profoundly unsettling about watching people celebrate the triumph of power over the powerless.
I looked around at the gathering and saw something I have seen many times before. Exhaustion. Not physical exhaustion. Emotional exhaustion. These were not activists performing a political hobby. These were people carrying decades of grief. Across Ireland, Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States, Iranian communities have spent years organising protests, writing articles, lobbying politicians, documenting abuses and trying to tell the world what is happening inside Iran. Many feel they have become the journalists, historians and witnesses for people who cannot speak freely themselves. Yet many also feel that their voices rarely travel beyond their own communities. They write. They organise. They gather. They speak. They return home. Then they begin again the following week.
One of the strongest emotions present yesterday was frustration at what many perceive as selective sympathy. This is not a competition of suffering. Palestinian suffering matters. Israeli suffering matters. Ukrainian suffering matters. Every innocent life matters. Every grieving mother matters. Every murdered child matters. Yet many Iranian protesters feel invisible within international conversations. They watch some tragedies dominate headlines while others struggle to receive attention. They ask why some victims become household names while others remain anonymous. They ask why some nations receive endless solidarity while others spend decades trying simply to have their suffering acknowledged.
This feeling has only deepened since the events that followed the massacre of Israeli civilians on October 7. Many Iranians watched the horror unfold and condemned it. They saw innocent people murdered, kidnapped and brutalised. They saw families destroyed. Yet as the conflict that followed expanded, many felt the world's conversation increasingly became trapped inside opposing political camps. Some spoke only of Palestinian suffering. Others spoke only of Israeli suffering. Meanwhile many Iranians looked at the debate and saw something familiar: once again, their own dead disappeared from view. Once again, the suffering of ordinary Iranians seemed absent from public consciousness. Once again, they found themselves asking why some tragedies become global causes while others remain largely unseen.
Another subject surfaced repeatedly throughout the gathering. Many spoke about the hopes that emerged when international pressure on the Islamic Republic appeared to increase. Some believed history had finally reached a turning point. Some believed external pressure combined with internal resistance might create a genuine opportunity for change. Many Iranians listened carefully to statements made by international leaders and interpreted them as encouragement to challenge the regime that has dominated their lives for almost half a century. For people living inside Iran, such decisions are not abstract political calculations. They are matters of life and death. When people leave the safety of their homes and confront armed authorities, they risk imprisonment, torture, disappearance and death.
Many protesters yesterday spoke openly about a profound feeling of betrayal. They watched people inside Iran risk everything. They watched young men and women leave their homes believing that perhaps this time history would move in a different direction. Then they watched reports of arrests, killings and executions emerge while international discussions increasingly shifted towards nuclear negotiations, military calculations, regional stability, energy security and the Strait of Hormuz. For many Iranians, it felt as if the language had changed, the priorities had changed and the focus had changed, while families continued burying children and mourning sons and daughters.
What haunted many conversations after the protest was not only what happened during those months of unrest but what happened afterwards. After months of darkness, restrictions gradually eased and internet access returned. Yet many Iranians did not experience this as a return to normality. They experienced it as a message. The blackout had hidden the violence. The reconnection revealed its consequences. Families saw what had happened to their country. Exiles saw what had happened to their loved ones. The authorities had demonstrated something terrible. They had demonstrated that they possessed the power to isolate an entire nation, suppress dissent and then reconnect the country once they believed control had been restored. Many interpreted it as a warning to future generations. A warning to those inside Iran and a warning to those watching from outside. If another uprising comes, the same methods can be used again.
For many Iranians this was not a new lesson. They remember the Green Movement of 2009. They remember later waves of unrest. They remember the protests that followed the death of Mahsa Jina Amini. They remember the names, the photographs, the funerals and the promises that justice would eventually come. Each time people filled the streets demanding dignity, freedom and change. Each time families paid a terrible price. Each time reports were written, condemnations were issued and statements were delivered. Yet each time many Iranians watched the system survive and concluded that those in power had learned something dangerous: they could continue. They could imprison. They could torture. They could execute. They could silence. They could weather international outrage until attention shifted elsewhere.
This belief was visible on the faces of many protesters yesterday. They no longer speak only about the brutality of the regime. They speak about accountability. They ask what prevents violence when those responsible believe they will never face meaningful consequences. They ask how many reports must be written, how many condemnations must be issued and how many resolutions must be passed before they have any practical effect. They ask how a government accused by its critics of imprisonment, torture, executions and violent repression can continue negotiating with the world's most powerful nations while the families of victims continue waiting for justice. They ask why the rulers of Iran are treated as statesmen while their victims are treated as statistics.
The most controversial part of the speech was not political at all. It was theological. For decades the rulers of Iran have presented themselves not merely as politicians but as guardians of faith. They claim moral authority. They claim religious legitimacy. They claim to govern while awaiting the return of the Hidden Imam, a figure associated with justice, truth and compassion. Yet many Iranians increasingly ask a dangerous question.
What if the Hidden Imam returned tomorrow? Would he stand beside the executioners or the executed? Would he stand beside the interrogators or the prisoners? Would he stand beside those ordering internet blackouts or those trying to tell the world what is happening? Would he stand beside power or beside truth?
The question matters because it is not a rejection of faith. It is a challenge to the use of faith as political protection. The deeper accusation being made by many Iranians today is not that religion has failed. It is that religion has been used to shield power from accountability.
For many Iranians, the struggle is no longer simply political. It has become a struggle over the meaning of faith itself. Many no longer see themselves as resisting religion. They see themselves as resisting the use of religion as a shield for power. They see a profound difference between spirituality and control, between faith and coercion, between God and government. They see a profound difference between a religion that comforts the suffering and a system that uses suffering to maintain authority.
This is why the question of legitimacy matters so deeply. Every ruler claims authority. Every ruler claims wisdom. Every ruler claims necessity. The real question is how power should be judged. Persian civilisation asked this question long before the Islamic Republic existed. Long before modern politics existed. Long before today's rulers were born. In Persian thought, legitimacy was never simply about force. It was about justice. It was about truth. It was about the sacred bond between ruler and people. A ruler could possess armies, courts and prisons, yet if justice departed, legitimacy departed with it. A throne could survive long after moral authority had vanished.
As these thoughts moved through the crowd, I found myself returning to a question that had haunted me since the beginning of the protest. Why are so many people willing to look away? Not from Iran alone, but from suffering in general. Why do some forms of extremism receive immediate condemnation while others become politically inconvenient to discuss? Why do some victims fit comfortably into public narratives while others remain invisible? Why do some people find endless sympathy for one group while withholding it from another? Why is compassion sometimes distributed according to ideology rather than humanity?
These are not comfortable questions. But they are necessary questions. Because when sympathy becomes selective, justice becomes selective. When outrage becomes selective, human rights become selective. And when human rights become selective, the very principles on which they rest begin to erode.
As the protest continued, I found myself looking less at the banners and more at the people. The faces told a story that speeches alone could never fully capture. There was sorrow there, certainly. There was frustration. There was disappointment. But there was also something else. Determination. The kind of determination that emerges only after years of disappointment. The kind that survives because it has learned not to depend on immediate victories.
Many of the people standing there yesterday have spent years carrying two worlds inside them. They live in Ireland. They work in Ireland. They raise families in Ireland. They contribute to Irish society. Yet part of their heart remains permanently attached to a country thousands of kilometres away. Every arrest, every execution, every internet blackout, every prison sentence and every funeral crosses borders and enters their lives. Exile does not end suffering. It simply relocates it. The body leaves. The nervous system stays connected.
One moment from the afternoon remains with me because it seemed to capture the entire confusion of the day in a single image. Among the visual displays prepared by organisers was a symbolic noose. It was not there as a threat. It was there because many passers-by walk past the word "execution" without truly seeing it. Reports speak of executions. Human rights organisations document executions. Politicians condemn executions. Yet the word itself has become strangely abstract. A noose makes it real. It reminds people that behind every statistic stands a human being whose life was deliberately ended by another human being. The noose was carried beside signs calling for an end to executions in Iran and beside photographs of young men who had already paid that price. Then something happened that revealed how fragmented our understanding of suffering has become.
A man carrying political signs and symbols associated with the Islamic Republic moved towards the Iranian gathering. For many Iranians standing there, the symbolism was impossible to separate from the memories they carried. Some saw not a banner but the system responsible for prisons, torture chambers, executions and funerals. An emotional exchange followed.
One of the protesters carrying the symbolic noose moved towards the regime supporter and shouted, "Why are you supporting terrorists?" Almost immediately, several people nearby began shouting "Shame! Shame!" at the person holding the noose. What struck me afterwards was not the confrontation itself. It was the confusion.
The noose was intended to condemn executions. The people shouting "Shame" appeared to believe they were condemning aggression. The regime supporter appeared to believe he was provoking his opponents. Three completely different understandings of the same moment existed simultaneously.
And perhaps that confusion tells us something important about the world we now inhabit. People no longer arrive at events seeking to understand. Many arrive already knowing who the victims are. Already knowing who the villains are. Already knowing which suffering deserves sympathy and which suffering can be ignored. Few stop long enough to ask questions.
This is why the protests continue. It is not because people enjoy protesting. It is not because they enjoy carrying photographs of the dead. It is not because they enjoy spending weekends explaining their country's pain to strangers. It is because silence feels like surrender. Forgetting feels like betrayal. Memory becomes a responsibility.
Yet if this article is to be truthful, it must record not only the painful moments of yesterday but the hopeful ones as well. Because they existed. Amid the interruptions, amid the hostility and amid the frustration, there were also moments that reminded us why we continue showing up.
A group of Irish Christians approached our gathering and prayed for Iran. They did not come to argue. They did not come to debate politics. They came with compassion. In a world increasingly divided into competing camps and competing narratives, their simple act of kindness carried enormous weight. They saw human beings before they saw politics. They saw suffering before they saw ideology. Their prayers reminded many of us that empathy still exists.
Several Irish passers-by also stopped after the speeches had finished. Some thanked us. Some expressed sympathy. Some asked questions. Some admitted they knew very little about Iran and wanted to understand more. Those conversations mattered. They reminded us that while many people walk past, not everyone walks past. While many choose not to listen, some do listen. While many remain unaware, some are willing to learn.
I also want to express my gratitude to the Gardaí. Week after week they stand nearby ensuring that people can gather safely and exercise rights that many of us know cannot be taken for granted. For those who have lived under authoritarian systems, the ability to stand in a public square, criticise a government and return home safely is not a small thing. It is a remarkable thing. Many Iranians understand this perhaps more deeply than most because they know what the absence of such freedoms looks like.
And perhaps this brings me back to Ireland itself. Ireland gave refuge to many of us. Ireland opened its doors when our homeland could no longer provide safety. Ireland gave us a place to rebuild our lives. For that, many Iranians remain profoundly grateful. Gratitude, however, does not remove the right to ask difficult questions. Friendship allows honesty. Many Iranian exiles continue to wonder why their community's concerns so often struggle to gain political attention. They wonder why the suffering of ordinary Iranians rarely receives sustained focus. They wonder why governments that speak passionately about human rights in many contexts often appear quieter when Iran is involved. These questions do not emerge from hostility. They emerge from disappointment. They emerge from the feeling of watching a tragedy unfold while waiting for the world to notice.
As the afternoon drew to a close, I looked once more at the photographs surrounding us. Young faces. Faces that should still be alive. Faces that should be building careers, falling in love, raising families and planning futures. Instead they have become symbols of a struggle that continues to consume generation after generation. I thought about the parents who no longer have children. I thought about the prisoners still sitting in cells. I thought about the families separated by borders they never wished to cross. I thought about the millions of Iranians who have spent decades waiting for a normal life.
Then I thought about something even larger. I thought about how easily human beings become accustomed to suffering when it happens far away. I thought about how quickly extraordinary injustice becomes ordinary background noise. I thought about how dangerous it is when the abnormal becomes normal. When executions become statistics. When prisoners become numbers. When exiles become invisible. When entire nations become footnotes.
That is why we continue standing in public squares. Not because we believe one speech will change the world. Not because we believe one protest will topple a regime. Not because we believe one article will suddenly awaken humanity. We continue because memory matters.
We continue because those who have been silenced still deserve voices. We continue because every generation inherits a responsibility not only to remember suffering but to challenge it.
And we continue because despite everything, despite the disappointments, despite the betrayals, despite the years of waiting, millions of Iranians still carry the same dream.
Not war. Not revenge. Not domination. Return.
The chance to return home with dignity. The chance to rebuild a wounded homeland. The chance to raise children without fear. The chance to speak without fear. The chance to live without fear.
The chance to walk through the streets of Iran as free citizens rather than subjects.
The rulers of Iran may possess prisons. They may possess courts. They may possess weapons. They may possess the machinery of power. But they do not possess Iran itself. Iran belongs to its people. It belongs to the mothers still waiting for justice. It belongs to the fathers still carrying photographs. It belongs to the students, workers, teachers, artists and dreamers who refuse to surrender their hope. It belongs to those who remained and to those who were forced to leave.
And so we will continue. Inside Iran and outside Iran. Through writing. Through protest. Through memory. Through witness. Through every peaceful means available to us. We will continue because exile was never the destination. Exile was the interruption.
Home remains the destination.
And until that day arrives, we ask the world for something very simple.
Look at us. Not our flags. Not our politics. Not our slogans. Look at us.
And ask why, after nearly half a century, an ancient civilisation is still standing in public squares around the world asking simply to be seen.
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