Every time I go out I have my bag searched.
Any evidence of protest could give the security
forces another excuse to arrest me.
Some of my friends who have been arrested
have disappeared.
I have to go, but please
keep all of my messages and videos
for me, will you?
When freedom comes, I want to remember
what hell we had to go through.
Protests in Iran have raged for months
since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was killed
after she was detained by morality police.
I have been in secret contact with female
protesters since the start.
They create their diaries, send them to me,
then they destroy them
as they can't keep them.
We identify each other discreetly by
asking a simple question like:
'What’s the weather like today?'
It’s 9th of October, more than three weeks
since the start of the protests.
A photograph of a rubber bullet wound.
It is 05:00 in Iran.
She must have been
up all night.
They shot me.
I was just walking past a line of riot police.
Some of them stared at me.
I asked if there was anything wrong.
Then suddenly, one of them pointed the gun
at me and fired.
Can you actually believe it?
There is no logic.
You feel like they are zombies.
They grabbed my hair and
pushed me to the ground.
Every time I turned my head, I saw many
guns pointing at me.
Over days her mum nursed her bruised body.
More messages came in.
What did you have for dinner?
I had... soup?
We know it’s safe to speak now.
Tonight for the first time ever I saw my mum
confronting the authorities.
She used to tell me to observe the hijab rules
to protect me from the morality police.
But now she's actually gone to
challenge them.
It’s mid-October.
Now 11 women across Iran
are sending me their diaries
including Neda, who is texting me from Mashhad
a very religious city in the north-east of Iran.
Hello.
What's the weather like?
There is so much happening, Saba
I’m drawing and writing what is happening but
you know it’s not safe for me to keep a diary.
Even my very conservative mother is changing
because of these protests.
Her and her friends study Quran in a religious group,
they’re horrified by seeing videos of police
killing young people on social media.
It is the first time she has ever openly
criticised the regime.
But still, I have to keep my protest a secret.
It's the 27th of October
The crackdown on the school
protests continues.
Children are outraged at the killing of a
16-year-old school girl.
My niece is protesting in her high school and
she told me how
the militia and headmistress have searched
them and threatened them.
Less than a month later eyewitnesses in the
Kurdish regions of Iran
describe an ongoing ‘massacre’
against protesters.
I get a message from Rojin in Sanandaj:
I’ve seen such horrendous scenes.
They shot a protester right in front of my eyes.
I’ve been filming what I can.
I want to make a documentary but I have to
delete all my videos for now
in case my phone is searched.
Please keep the videos for me.
Today I smuggled medical supplies into a
safe house where they are treating
wounded protesters.
They can’t go
to hospital.
The police tried to search my bag, I screamed:
'Get out!
I have my underwear here!'
It was night, so by torchlight I managed to
show them my clothes
and not the bandages and saline underneath.
I got away, but it was so scary.
The Iranian government claims that the
protests are being organised
by terrorists rather than citizens.
They have intensified the crackdown
across the country.
Things are getting even worse where
Rojin lives.
In Kurdish cities of Iran nothing is normal.
In a taxi today we drove past a body lying on
the street.
But at least I feel like I'm actually doing
something and I feel alive.
Across Iran, more and more women refuse to
observe the Islamic dress code
risking imprisonment, even death.
After being shot, Par had told me:
‘I can see the dawn of freedom, so I will keep
fighting in one way or another.’
I try to contact her.
Hi.
What did you have for dinner?
Hello?
My messages are not delivered.
I have heard nothing from her since.