January 9, 2026 Update
Tonight, I am compelled to speak with urgency. There are credible indications that the Islamic Republic may attempt to turn this night into a massacre, under cover of a sweeping communications blackout.
Iranians have come into the streets peacefully. They have been met with gunfire. This is not new. For forty-seven years, the Islamic Republic has answered citizens’ demands with bullets, prisons, torture, and mourning.
What makes tonight especially dangerous is the deliberate darkness: internet and phone networks pushed toward collapse so that families cannot find their loved ones, journalists cannot document, and the world cannot witness. A blackout is not a technical failure in Iran; It is a tactic.
I have been informed that last night, in Tehran alone, hundreds of people, reportedly at least 400, were taken to a single hospital with severe eye injuries caused by pellet gun fire. Even more alarming are reports that security forces attacked hospitals and tried to arrest the wounded. A state that hunts the injured in hospital corridors has crossed a line that no society should accept and no world should ignore.
Some still insist on romantic myths about this regime, treating it as a defender of the oppressed abroad. But a government that shoots peaceful protesters and violates medical neutrality at home cannot claim moral authority anywhere. The Islamic Republic has made cruelty a governing method. It is an enemy of human dignity, and its record points to crimes against humanity.
To Western governments and international institutions: silence is not prudence. It is permission. Your inaction lowers the cost of murder.
I call on you, tonight, to speak publicly and act decisively: demand an end to live fire against civilians, insist on the protection of hospitals and medical staff, and press for the immediate restoration of communications. Support urgent international monitoring and accountability measures. Do not wait for the morning’s body count to find your voice.
Stand with Iran’s freedom-seeking people now, when they are being pushed into the dark.
Shirin Ebadi
January 9, 2026