LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — A community was left devastated as hundreds have been killed for peacefully protesting.
Since September what began as a protest focused on Iran's mandatory headscarf, or hijab, has become one of the largest challenges to the ruling leaders since the chaotic years following the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“Innocent people dying, lots of children, tortured, raped, and killed.”
Emotions are running high for many iranians like Roya Brodheim.
She says the Iranian regime is targeting and gunning down its own people.
“They want their country back; they want their freedom back.”
Brodheim was born in Iran she says what her country was before and what it is now is like night and day.
She says the protests taking place in Iran and all over the nation first erupted from the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini back in September.
She was arrested for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code for women. She collapsed at a police station and died three days later.
It’s been nearly two and a half months since this occurred and Roya says the protests and killing of innocent people are only getting worse.
“It is the basic rights of any person, that they don’t have, they don’t have any rights and they don’t have any future.”
A human rights activist group in Iran, that has been monitoring the unrest says at least 426 people have been killed and more than 17,000 have been arrested.
Brodheim has a cousin in Iran but communicating with them is a major challenge. She says they talked recently and they are fearful of what will happen next.
“People are demonstrating in peace, but they are getting killed in peace, I mean they are not doing anything besides chanting freedom.”
On Wednesday the U.S. imposed sanctions on members of Iran's intelligence agency, leaders of the revolutionary guard, prison wardens, and others. They have also increased access to American companies to provide internet in the country.
But Brodheim says more needs to be done.
“It is really hard, for a mother, for a father, for any human being to think that you would go ask for your freedom and you would get killed.”
Brodheim says she hopes the UN Human Rights Office and the U.S. can get more involved and help release the thousands of people who have been detained for participating in these protests.
“They want respect for themselves, for their country, for their family, and that is all they want and that is all those kids want.”
