Karim Rahimi

Research Associate in Genetics | Harvard Medical School

Published online by TISHK Center for Kurdistan Studies: Bonn, Germany: 13 January 2026

I express deep solidarity with the courageous people of Iran, who these days are facing unprecedented brutality and a violent crackdown at the hands of the Islamic Republic Regime and its security apparatus, including the IRGC, Basij, etc. For 47 years, this regime, which is a dangerous hybrid zombie of Islamist-Communist-Fascist and other radical ideologies, has evolved into something monstrous.

Since late December 2025, this regime has cracked down on the country, and especially over the last five days, with a total digital blackout and no internet or phone communication, thousands of brave people have been massacred on the streets. No matter if they are Persian, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Azeris, etc.

These brave people are just fighting for their freedom and basic human rights. Their courage is extraordinary: unarmed civilians standing against a brutal regime, demanding to break free from this net of evil after 47 years of struggle. The regime’s response has been devastating: security forces have opened fire on peaceful protesters, killing thousands, including children. Yet still they march.

A message to these brave people: Your bravery inspires the world. We see your sacrifice, we mourn your fallen, and we stand with you in your fight for liberation. However, to take down this multi-headed monster, there is a need for significant international support, including from the great United States of America. There are lots of discussions and disagreements about the level of involvement, but this Islamic-Republic-Regime is a systematic zombie that is dangerous for the entire globe, directly or indirectly, no matter how far you are from them. If their poisonous ideology and philosophy supports shooting randomly at the heads of their own young people, they would do the same to any nation across the world if they evolve further and reach, for example, nuclear bombs or biological weapons.

Many countries, particularly in Europe, have ignored the brutality of this regime so many times, even when the regime has committed systematic terrorist attacks inside Europe and they have even caught the terrorists and shamefully returned them to the hands of the regime without serious consequences; for example, when the regime killed the leaders of the Kurdish opposition. I hope they are awake now and this needs to end!

As a Kurd, and on a brief personal note, I was a second grader, only 8 years old, when for the first time I saw the bodies of women and men, including a 14-year-old boy killed by members of the IRGC in our neighborhood in Kurdistan. Since then, I have seen how this monster evolved and created multi-heads of terrorist groups and suppressed and killed people, domestically, regionally, and worldwide. Later, at some point when my life was under threat, I was forced to flee Iran many years ago and have not been back and not seen my family. I lost my father last summer after not seeing him for about ten years and just grieved in my own small niche far from my family. While I am grateful for having a second home country and am proudly committed to making it greater, still, I and many other people like me are feeling the pain and suffering of their family, even if they are physically far from them!

There have been serial uprisings in Iran over the last few decades, and the regime has become more monstrous each time, killing and arresting more and more people, mainly from the young generation, who are then brutally tortured, raped, and executed. The last similar and largest uprising before this current one was the “Woman, Life, Freedom” (“Jin, Jiyan, Azadi”) movement in September 2022, triggered by the torture and killing of a 22-year-old Kurdish girl named Jina (Mahsa) Amini while in the custody of Iran’s morality police for not wearing a hijab. In that uprising, thousands of brave, mainly young, people were killed, and thousands more were arrested, raped, and tortured, many of whom, after being released, committed suicide.

Now, this new version of the regime is much more monstrous, and it must fall. Otherwise, there will be much worse consequences this time, not just for its own people, but for the rest of the world, as the regime will do anything to guarantee its survival. It must fall and be eliminated this time!

May the courage of these brave people lead to a free and secular future!