For Iranians living in Saskatchewan who have family back home, worry, fear and even guilt weigh on their minds as the war continues in its second month.
Regina resident Zahra Hosseini cannot consistently communicate with her family, all of whom live in Tehran. She said that in addition to the internet blackout, shut-down water and electricity, and ongoing strikes, Iranians are facing increased oppression and frightening communication from their government.
“They’re sending mass text messages to the people of Iran … actually threatening them that if they are cooperating with [the] enemy or if they suspect anyone, they are going to be executed, arrested or tortured,” Hosseini said.
Hosseini and her husband chose to leave Iran and have been living in Regina since 2022. Since then, both have been active voices for the Iranian people and removal of the governing regime.
Discontent with the regime has grown steadily in recent years, peaking with the January protests, which were only suppressed when security forces killed thousands of attendees.
CBC News has not been able to confirm the exact death toll.
Hosseini and her husband were in Tehran for the protest and were tear-gassed. The violence there led her to resolve to continue protesting the regime in earnest when she returned to the province.
She said it’s not just her family and fellow countrymen who are being threatened; Iranians abroad are under a microscope as well.
Hosseini said the government sees people who have emigrated as potential enemies, and are contacting people in Iran, including her own family, about their relatives overseas.
“They are threatening them to confiscate our homes and belongings and properties in Iran because they somehow can figure out who has [emigrated] from Iran,” she said.
Hosseini said a close family member in Tehran received a text message from the government in late March because she had emigrated. Housseini said he and other people who have received these messages are being summoned to the office of the prosecutor general for investigation.
“Just because their family emigrated and had been the voice of the people of Iran [and] had participated in the rallies,” she said.
Pooyan Arab, executive director of the Saskatoon Iranian Cultural Association, said information about the ongoing confiscation of property from figures in the Iranian diaspora is widely shared through media like international news outlet DW and International Human Rights Activists News Agency.
Arab said Iranians have been in this kind of situation before. He said when the government is weakened, like it is during war, it engages in “brutal crackdowns” on its people. The intention is to create fear.
The Saskatoon resident said checkpoints are set up in each Iranian city, where state officers search the phones of citizens. Arab said people are arrested if they are found to have shared photos of buildings that have been wiped out or damaged by air strikes. Videos of these arrests are shown across state media like Mehr News Agency.
“If they find a photo in your phone from a place that was struck, they treat you as if you’re spying for the U.S., for Israel, which carries not a light sentence. So it’s either very long-term sentences or execution,” Arab said.
Iranians not better off
Despite hopes and optimism when the strikes began, the people of Iran are now in a worse situation than before the war, Arab said.
“Because now [the regime] are weakened. Attacks have potentially destroyed a lot of the bridges … and the only people that they can actually have power over right now is the people,” Arab said.
“Everyone thinks the situation is going to get worse if the Islamic Republic stays in power. And so there is a sense of losing hope. ”
Prior to a ceasefire agreement between Iran, Israel and the U.S., citizens were dealing with bombing. Hosseini said a building near her parents’ home was attacked, causing the windows in their apartment to blow out. She said both are doing OK.
“They were super scared, but they’re scared of the regime more than these attacks,” she said.
Daily struggle
Arab said many people involved with the Saskatoon Iranian Cultural Association feel helpless, having no way to control what is happening to their families and people. The distance, he said, makes day-to-day life difficult to navigate.
“Probably the majority of Iranians, if not all of them, have a good part of their brain preoccupied with what is happening in Iran, with what is going to be the future of the country, their family,” said Arab.
“It’s like this shadow on your brain that you can’t use all of your mind because it has issues running in the background all the time.”
He said people are checking the news constantly, trying to get a handle on what is happening to the people in Iran amidst details of the war and politics. But without consistent ways to stay in contact with those still living under that regime, the distance feels wider than ever.
“We do carry a guilt because regardless of whatever positioning that you have, we all think we could have done something different,” Arab said, referring to protesting efforts.
“And it’s not even your pain to say that, ‘OK, I’m going to deal with my pain.’ It’s someone else’s pain you’re carrying.”
Housseini said she wants non-Iranians to know that thousands of people are dealing with extreme stress and anxiety with no way to help their families back in Iran.
“We wake up early in the morning and go to work and put on a mask and smile and deal with people and try to perform best,” Housseini said.
That, she said, is very hard on them.
Arab said Iranians who regularly protest the regime in Saskatchewan harboured hopes the decapitation strikes at the start of the war would weaken the government. Six weeks on, the regime’s evident staying power has challenged faith that it will fall in the immediate future.
However, Arab said Iranians have reason to believe that they will have the opportunity to return to the streets and protest the regime soon.
At the same time Hosseini wants the Canadian government to offer the same kind of help Ukrainians got when that country was invaded by Russia.
Saskatchewan has welcomed over 9,000 displaced Ukrainians since 2022, according to the Regina branch of Ukrainian Congress Canada (UCC), offering settlement services, housing and immigration pathways. The UCC said approximately half of those have settled in Regina.
“Iranian people have been so hard-working and truthful and may actually benefit other countries, but they only need a chance and unfortunately that chance hasn’t been given to them yet,” Hosseini said.
Meanwhile in Saskatchewan, Arab said Iranians will not remain silent, despite the increased pressure on their families abroad. Regular rallies will still occur in Saskatoon, he said.
