A Marina woman reflects on the uprising in her home country of Iran.

Agata Popęda here. It was a beautiful, sunny morning today, Jan. 21 when I met with Mahshid Bozorgnia, a Marina resident and an Iranian, who is closely monitoring the current situation in her country of origin, looking for ways to help. 

Bozorgnia works as an international programs student specialist at CSU Monterey Bay. She is a film critic and the member of the Iranian Independent Filmmakers Association. She has been living the last 10 years in Monterey County, following nine years she spent in Dubai.

The context and the reason for our conversation were the recent and ongoing events in Iran, where, since the last days of 2025, Iranians initiated another titanic effort to shake off the oppressive far-right government which, using religion as a tool, has been crushing people’s backs for the last 35 years under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

People of Iran have been attempting to take the current regime down many times, with the Woman, Life, Freedom movement of 2022 being the latest big wave of protests. But this time, when the Bazaaris, the merchant class, closed their shops and restaurants and took to the streets, people joined them. Soon the anti-government protests spread across Iran, including small towns. There were tens of millions on the streets.

This time, Bozorgnia told me, they chanted a new slogan, calling for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, in exile in the U.S. since the 1970s, to return to country and power. Pahlavi embraced the call, agreeing to lead a future transitional government, and U.S. President Donald Trump promised to support the Iranian people, suggesting a possibility of a military intervention in Iran. As a result, with renewed hope, 15 million took to the streets.

But the help never came. What happened instead was the government turned off the internet, causing a complete communication blackout and used two days of this isolation to kill an estimated 15,000 protesters, including children, teenagers, women and artists. (You can read about one local writer’s experience of these horrors back home in the Forum column in tomorrow’s paper.)

“Thousands of innocent people have been killed,” says Bozorgnia, who as part of the film community shares the stories of the killing of actor Ahmad Abbassi and director Javad Ganji. “Tens of thousands are in prison, facing charges that include death, for example by hanging.”

While the repercussions continue and the government agents continue to track people in their own homes, this fight is not over, Bozorgnia says, hoping for more action and calling for an international intervention.

“This regime must be delegitimized,” she argues, arguing for breaking off all relations with the current regime in Iran.

This article was modified on Jan. 28, 2026 to correct the number of those killed during the protests, and for accuracy.