Hardworking Americans need to wake up: the theocratic regime in Tehran is killing its own people in cold blood while the world dithers. What began as protests over collapsing living standards and soaring prices has been met with a ruthless campaign of live fire, mass arrests and information blackouts that have already cost hundreds of lives. This is not order being restored; it is state-sanctioned slaughter of unarmed citizens demanding basic freedoms.
Human-rights groups are sounding the alarm that Iran’s security forces — including elements of the IRGC — are using unlawful force, shotguns loaded with metal pellets, and other brutal tactics to crush dissent. Amnesty and other watchdogs report widespread arbitrary detentions and a near-total communications blackout that the regime uses to hide its atrocities from the world. The tally of arrests and the reports of bodies piling up are exactly the kind of steady, deliberate repression Americans should oppose with every tool at our disposal.
Local accounts and footage — what little slips out despite the blackout — point to massacres in towns where protesters dared to demand dignity instead of tyranny. Reports from several cities describe security forces clearing streets with heavy machine guns and hospital raids to arrest the wounded, scenes eerily familiar to anyone who remembers Iran’s past uprisings. These aren’t isolated scuffles; they look like coordinated attempts to terrorize a population into submission.
Among those watching in horror is Juliana Taimoorazy, an Assyrian Christian activist who was born and raised in Tehran and smuggled out as a teenager to escape persecution. She has spent her life speaking for the persecuted and now tells American audiences that her own family remains trapped inside Iran amid the bloodshed, pleading for help that has been too slow to arrive. Her story is a blunt reminder that these are real families, Christians and others, who face torture and death for daring to demand basic human rights.
Patriots should not be timid about naming the killers. The ayatollahs rule through fear and cruelty, and any Western policy that treats them as legitimate partners while their security forces butcher civilians is a moral failure. Washington must be prepared to increase sanctions, choke off the regime’s weapon supply lines, expose the atrocities relentlessly, and support dissidents with secure communications and humanitarian aid until the people of Iran can breathe free again.
We also must stand with organizations that have long cared for minorities endangered by Tehran’s theocratic agenda. Groups led by people like Taimoorazy have been rescuing and resettling Christians and other minorities for decades, and they need funding, visas, and political backing now to help those fleeing the slaughter. America’s Christian and conservative communities ought to lead the charge — funding relief, lobbying for refugee protections, and refusing to treat religious persecution as a side issue.
This moment calls for courage, not neutrality. If we value liberty and the sanctity of human life, we must speak loudly for the Iran protesters and demand our government use every lawful means to stop the massacre. Let us be the nation that stands with the oppressed, not the one that quietly returns to business as usual while tyrants murder their own people.
