The last time Shideh Dashti visited her father in her native Iran was in 2019. After that, the University of Colorado Boulder engineering professor began speaking out against the Iranian government, the Islamic Republic and decided it wasn’t safe to go back.
Since then, Dashti has stayed in touch with her father by phone using Whatsapp, although it’s become increasingly difficult. During the anti-government protests that began in December and continued into January, the Iranian government cut off the internet to all but a select few. And, just as those restrictions were beginning to ease, the government reimposed the blackout after the United States and Israel attacked Iran in late February.
Dashti’s father calls her when he can from a landline using a phone card. Unlike many in Iran, she said he doesn’t hold back in his criticism of the Islamic Republic and its often-violent efforts to exert control.
“I asked him if he’s worried about talking about the government, and he said no. Everybody else that he knows is worried, and they’re cautious, rightfully so,” Dashti said. “But … he just wants to make sure that he gets out as much information as possible because it’s more important to him to get that voice out than to be worried about his own safety.”
To show his opposition to the government, Dashti’s father joined in the protests against the government earlier this year, despite her concerns about his health and safety.
“I was worried because usually the minimum they do is (use) tear gas, and my dad has a lung condition, and also it’s hard for him to run when he needs to.”
According to human rights groups, at least 7,000 people were killed during the protests and about 50,000 arrested.
Dashti said part of the reason her father is more willing than others to share information is that he knows his immediate family is out of danger. Dashti is an only child, her parents are divorced and she and her mother both live in the US. She said those who remain tight-lipped about the government, like her cousins in Iran, have very real fears that their children will be imprisoned, injured or even killed if they speak out.
In addition to father and daughter discussing the tens of thousands of Iranians believed to have been killed in the protests, Dashti’s father has shared details about rampant inflation in the country.
“Even within one week, many who were completely well off before this war are now struggling to put food on the table,” she said. “Eating meat has become a luxury for most families. Eggs, dairy products, that kind of thing. It has become a luxury.”
She said that the picture her father paints of Iran is more complicated than one might think.
“He sees on a daily basis going to the streets, kind of like a show played by the government (where) they display strong signs of support for the new Supreme Leader,” she said, referring to Mojtaba Khamenei, the son of Iran's former leader Ali Khamenei, who was killed in US-Israeli strikes in February. “And then at the same time, there are real people who came out for the protests in January. They’re very much against the government, and they’re fed up by it. And there are people who are extremely against this regime, but they’re also not happy with the war. So it all coexists.”
Dashti said the internet blackouts have devastated many who depend on internet access for their livelihoods.
“Iran’s government’s first response to protests internally is usually to shut down the internet so that they can basically control the narrative to the rest of the world,” she said. “That has been devastating for many small and large businesses in Iran since the war began.”
Dashti moved to the U.S. from Iran in 1999 when she was a teenager and more recently settled in Colorado, where she’s an associate professor of engineering at CU Boulder. She said her memory of life in Iran is mixed.
“Whenever I think about those days, it brings to my memory a combination of incredibly beautiful things next to incredibly ugly things,” she said.
Dashti was born shortly after the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979. She lived through the Iran-Iraq war, and she remembers the brutality of the Islamic regime against opposition groups as it consolidated power.
“They were often scenes of hangings in the streets, and I remember those scenes as a child, and that’s in addition to the war and just the violence of what that leaves,” she recounts. “But next to that, the memories of an ancient civilization that has one of the first records of human rights … incredible architecture … just so much beauty in poetry and philosophy.”
Dashti’s relationship to her native country took a dramatic turn in 2022 after the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested for not wearing a hijab properly. The killing led to the Woman Life Freedom Uprising in 2022 and a subsequent government crackdown.
“I think that was the first time we saw even a 5-year-old or a 7-year-old in the streets chanting, ‘Woman, Life, Freedom,’ and speaking out against the government and these children at that age getting shot and killed by the government,” she said. “I just felt ashamed to be silent just so that I could return and see my father.”
So Dashti began to voice her anger at the regime, knowing that she couldn’t return, at least for now. She said the more recent crackdown only added to her conviction.
“Most people that you would talk to (in Iran), they know somebody who has been killed, people that are teenagers, 12-year-olds, 15-year-olds, beautiful people, the bravest of people were murdered,” she said.
As for her father, Dashti said he remains hopeful that Iran can one day become a democracy. He tells her he blames his generation for allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to come to power in 1979. And, he says, while the next generation will need to rebuild the country, his generation must fix it first.
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