‘The revolution is still alive’: Diary of an Iranian student protesting against the regime
“The revolution is still alive in people, and people are looking forward to a big change to this country.”
These are the words of a young man studying at a university in Iran, who has shared his diary entries with Sky News.
Mohammed has seen first hand how authorities have cracked down on protests at universities and how students have adapted to continue their activity. His name has been changed to protect his identity.
When demonstrations break out against the nation’s repressive regime, it’s often students who are the beating heart of the resistance.
The sweeping unrest that has followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody is no different, and more than 700 students have been arrested, according to the activist HRANA news agency. At least four people have been executed in connection with the demonstrations.
Diary entry one – University protests
“I want to talk about the day they executed Majidreza Rahnavard.
“I was totally shocked. I was really, really sad and very angry. I wanted to do something.
Majidreza Rahnavard was executed by the regime
“I went to university. I was looking forward to seeing students come out and start chanting.
“But because of the high level of suppression and bad behaviours towards students we don’t have that kind of protests but things have changed.
“Changed to writing slogans on walls. At one of the campuses they do artistic protests, they hung hanging ropes from the ceiling in order to criticise the regime’s execution of these two guys.
“But although the form has changed for now the revolution is still alive in people, and people are looking forward to a big change to this country.
“The resistance groups are very active right now, a lot of them have been arrested and they try to keep the fire of the revolution going.
“For those who are truly against the regime, they don’t have a normal life. How can we have a normal life?
“Every step we walk, every piece of food we eat, every minute we spend working, every minute we spend studying and reading, we are thinking of the people who are in the prison.
“We are thinking of the people who are executed or killed on the streets.
“What we want from the world is please if you can’t do something good for us, please do not help this regime.
“You know their overthrow is our job. Stop talking and negotiating with them. This is a regime which is going to fire back at you if you continue working with them.
“We need the whole world to isolate this regime.”
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Diary entry two – Escaping into people’s homes
“I’m going to talk about one of the experiences I had in Iran during the last three months here during the revolution.
“We were on the street, we were protesting and chanting.
“Suddenly the special forces of the police and plain-clothes agents attacked us, and so we had to escape.
“We tried to find a way to get out of there.
“I saw that some people would open the doors to their homes to rescue us and we went into one of them.
“I have heard that in some houses they have saved some of the people. They also treated them because they got shot and used first aid kits to take care of those who were injured.
“That was so brave of them because if the government knows that, finds that out, they will also arrest them. Some of those arrested are people who have helped people on the street.”
Diary entry three – ‘She slapped his face and ran away’
“I also saw many girls, especially girls, who were so brave that they would stand in front of those with guns.
“In one case, one girl even slapped the face of one of the plain-clothes agents who had captured one of the guys and was forcing his foot on his back.
“She slapped his face and ran away. The good thing was that the people tried to help him.”
Diary entry four – Protest in Tehran
“I talked to one of my friends, she is a brave girl.
“She has a friend who was arrested when she wanted to join the people who were protesting in Tehran.
“When she got out of her car to join the protesters, some people suddenly put her in a van. Unfortunately she has been raped.
“After some days she was released, I think in the same neighbourhood.
“She was in a bad place but I think she has gained her energy back and she is even more brave now.”
The aftermath of a fire at Evin prison last October. Pic: AP
Diary entry five – Evin prison
“I also remember the night when Evin prison was set on fire. That was a very, very bad night.
“Many people in Tehran went on to the street and tried to get to the prison.
“We just got into the cars and tried to get there, but unfortunately they had blocked the roads to not let the people get there.
“That was just a warzone, they just shot some people with tear gas.”
The twin threats of climate change and Russian malign activity in the Arctic must be taken “deadly seriously,” David Lammy has warned.
Sky News joined him on the furthest reaching tour of the Arctic by a British foreign secretary.
We travelled to Svalbard – a Norwegian archipelago that is the most northern settled land on Earth, 400 miles from the North Pole.
It is at the heart of an Arctic region facing growing geopolitical tension and feeling the brunt of climate change.
Mr Lammy told us the geopolitics of the region must be taken “deadly seriously” due to climate change and “the threats we’re seeing from Russia”.
We witnessed the direct impact of climate change along Svalbard’s coastline and inland waterways. There is less ice, we were told, compared to the past.
David Lammy and Norway’s Foreign Minister Barth Eide view the melting Blomstrandbreen glacier. Pic: PA
The melting ice is opening up the Arctic and allowing Russia more freedom to manoeuvre.
“We do see Russia’s shadow fleet using these waters,” Mr Lammy said. “We do see increased activity from submarines with nuclear capability under our waters and we do see hybrid sabotage of undersea cables at this time.”
In Tromso, further south, the foreign secretary was briefed by Norwegian military commanders.
The foreign secretary visiting SvalSat, a satellite ground station which monitors climate in Svalbard. Pic: PA
Vice Admiral Rune Andersen, the Chief of Norwegian Joint Headquarters, told Sky News the Russian threat was explicit.
“Russia has stated that they are in confrontation with the West and are utilising a lot of hybrid methods to undermine Western security,” he said.
But it’s not just Vladimir Putin they’re worried about. Norwegian observers are concerned by US president Donald Trump’s strange relationship with the Russian leader too.
Norwegian observers are concerned about the Russian leader – and Trump being ‘too soft’ on him. Pic: AP
Karsten Friis, a Norwegian defence and security analyst, told Sky News: “If he’s too soft on Putin, if he is kind of normalising relations with Russia, I wouldn’t be surprised.
“I would expect Russia to push us, to test us, to push borders, to see what we can do as Europeans.”
Changes in the Arctic mean new challenges for the NATO military alliance – including stepping up activity to deter threats, most of all from Russia.
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In Iceland, we toured a NATO airbase with the foreign secretary.
There, he said maintaining robust presence in the Arctic was essential for western security.
“Let’s be clear, in this challenging geopolitical moment the high north and the Arctic is a heavily contested arena and we should be under no doubt that NATO and the UK need to protect it for our own national security.”
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This is also about distracting Russia, drawing away resources that could have been used in the war in Ukraine and deterring it in the future.
Because the more Arctic opens up, the more this once pristine wilderness is becoming the arena of national rivalry and potentially conflict.
World
‘What did they do to be burned and bombed?’: Charity calls on UK to offer Gaza children life-saving treatment
A British charity has written to the prime minister and foreign secretary, urging them to allow seriously ill children from Gaza into the UK to receive life-saving medical treatment.
Warning: This article contains images readers may find distressing
The co-founder of Project Pure Hope told Sky News it was way past the time for words.
“Now, we need action,” Omar Dinn said.
He’s identified two children inside Gaza who urgently need help and is appealing to the UK government to issue visas as a matter of urgency.
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Britain has taken only two patients from Gaza for medical treatment in 20 months of Israeli bombardment.
Children are among the bulk of the casualties in Gaza
“Most of the people affected by this catastrophe that’s unfolding in Gaza are children,” he continued. “And children are the most vulnerable.
“They have nothing to do with the politics, and we really just need to see them for what they are.
“They are children, just like my children, just like everybody’s children in this country – and we have the ability to help them.”
Sky News has been sent video blogs from British surgeons working in Gaza right now which show the conditions and difficulties they’re working under.
They prepare for potential immediate evacuation whilst facing long lists, mainly of children, needing life-saving emergency treatment day after day.
Dr Victoria Rose is a British surgeon working in southern Gaza’s last remaining hospital
Dr Victoria Rose told us: “Every time I come, I say it’s really bad, but this is on a completely different scale now. It’s mass casualties. It’s utter carnage.
“We are incapable of getting through this volume. We don’t have the personnel. We don’t have the medical supplies. And we really don’t have the facilities.
“We are the last standing hospital in the south of Gaza. We really are on our knees now.”
One of her patients is three-year-old Hatem, who was badly burned when an Israeli airstrike hit the family apartment.
Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
His pregnant mother and father were both killed, leaving him an orphan. He has 35 percent burns on his small body.
“It’s a massive burn for a little guy like this,” Dr Rose says. “He’s so adorable. His eyelids are burnt. His hands are burnt. His feet are burnt.”
Hatem’s grandfather barely leaves his hospital bedside. Hatem Senior told us: “What did these children do wrong to suffer such injuries? To be burned and bombed? We ask God to grant them healing.”
Hatem Senior
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The second child identified by the charity is Karam, who, aged one, is trying to survive in a tent in deeply unhygienic surroundings with a protruding intestine.
He’s suffering from a birth defect called Hirschsprung disease, which could be easily operated on with the right skills and equipment – unavailable to him in Gaza right now.
Read more:
Gaza doctor’s nine children killed
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Karam, aged one, has a birth defect that could be easily fixed with surgery
Karam’s mother Manal told our Gaza camera crew: “No matter how much I describe how much my son is suffering, I wouldn’t be able to describe it enough. I swear I am constantly crying.”
Children are among the bulk of casualties – some 16,000 have been killed, according to the latest figures from local health officials – and make up the majority of those being operated on, according to the British surgical team on the ground.
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