Two months ago, before Israel and the U.S. launched a coordinated attack, the word “Iran” written in human blood on the sidewalk was one of countless disturbing images to emerge from the country since the anti-regime protests began on Dec. 28, 2025. On Feb. 28, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the head of the regime was killed, and the U.S., Israel, and Iran are militarily engaged in major combat.
Cheers rang out in the streets of Tehran before the dust of surgical strikes had settled, gatherings that stood in stark contrast to the mass protests of just two months ago, when students and citizens marched against the regime in desperation, at the risk of their lives. The volume also ran counter to the muted response from cultural figures, including musicians, who have been surprisingly disengaged from the conflict. Among the few who have shown support are Dua Lipa, using her Service95 brand to bring awareness, Yungblud, who spoke out at a recent concert, and U2 and Boy George, who’ve released songs. Others, like Peter Gabriel, have posted messages of support on their platforms. Hardly a public outcry.
But there was no ignoring the visuals that made their way out. One of the enduring images from the uprising of two months ago was endless unzipped black body bags lining the streets. An estimated 20,000-30,000 protesters were killed on the streets by the regime. One video shared last month captured a father calling for his son — found dead among the bags. Like thousands of Iranians, the family was forced to pay more than $5,000 in “bullet fees” to retrieve their loved one.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are responsible for enforcing the strict, archaic laws of Khamenei. But it was Khamenei himself who ordered the killing of peaceful protesters, which, over two days — Jan. 8 and 9, 2026 — became the largest massacre in modern Iranian history, according to a BBC report. That the events of those days took place during an internet blackout meant many in the West didn’t see or hear about it.
“It was worse than the most terrifying horror film you’ve ever seen,” AliPink tells me in Farsi from Tehran, over a shaky video call. AliPink runs Techno Tehran Records and occasionally throws illegal raves — at the risk of punishment by death. He was arrested in 2023 and spent six months in prison for his “crimes.”
He first learned of the protests through friends in the Grand Bazaar, where the unrest began in the final days of 2025. That powder-keg moment quickly spread nationwide, reflecting widespread dissatisfaction with a regime that has systematically devastated the country while clinging to its rigid ideology. He says people ranging from 80-year-olds to five-year-olds took to the streets. The sheer intensity of the crowds convinced him the regime’s end was near. Instead, he witnessed the deliberate murder of civilians, a campaign designed to terrify Iranians into submission.
“I saw with my own eyes: shooting from rooftops, 15- and 16-year-old [paramilitary] Basij members walking out of school, being handed Kalashnikovs,” he says. “It was like this kid put down his PS5 and picked up a rifle. I don’t know what kind of brainwashing made them capable of killing.”
Daily reports revealed further brutality. IRGC forces entered hospitals treating wounded protesters, walked down rows of beds, and executed patients point-blank. Soon came images of the dreaded crane, used by the Islamic Republic to hang moharabs, or infidels. Firefighters had to hose blood off the streets. Doctors and medical workers were subsequently arrested and threatened with death for treating the injured. The blanket crime for all who have been murdered and imprisoned is “indemnity against God,” a nebulous charge used to eliminate dissenters.
“This was much worse than the Woman, Life, Freedom protests — though many women were killed in these demonstrations,” he says of the 2022 uprising following the death of 22-year-old Jina Mahsa Amini for violating Iran’s “covering up” edict. “People inside Iran are furious. They have nothing to lose. They are saying they’d rather die than live like this. They will do whatever it takes. There is no acceptance of this regime. People outside of Iran have made the Islamic Republic out to be a giant. It’s been dead for years.”
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It was the hijab that ignited Iran’s 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom movement. Compulsory restrictions for women dictate that hair must be covered with a headscarf and the body concealed in loose clothing, ostensibly so as not to tempt men. Amini’s defiance, and subsequent death, caused the country to erupt in protest, and the outrage reverberated worldwide.
In response, many Iranian musicians released songs. One of them, Shervin Hajipour’s “Baraye,” became the movement’s unofficial anthem and, in 2023, was awarded the first-ever Grammy for Best Song for Social Change. Meanwhile, Hajipour was arrested and sentenced on charges including “propaganda against the establishment” and “encouraging and provoking the public to riot to disrupt national security.” He was eventually pardoned. On Feb. 6 this year, he released “Iranian,” dedicated to the men and women lost this year.
He was not the only musician targeted during the Woman, Life, Freedom era. Among the many imprisoned was dissident rapper Toomaj Salehi, who over the course of three years spent more time behind bars than out of them. In April 2024, he was sentenced to death. A cross-section of international musicians — from Duran Duran and Richie Sambora to Pet Shop Boys, Jack Antonoff, Chrissie Hynde, Tom Morello, Tayla Parx, Peter Frampton, Nile Rodgers, and Sepp Osley — publicly condemned the ruling. Their advocacy contributed to the sentence ultimately being lifted.
A music activist on multiple fronts, Iran-born, U.K.-based Osley has spent years using music to draw attention to the plight of the Iranian people. In 2010, as part of Blurred Vision, he released a reworked version of Pink Floyd’s signature song titled “Another Brick in the Wall Pt 2 (Hey Ayatollah Leave Those Kids Alone,” which he reissued during the Woman, Life, Freedom movement.
Alongside Osley, Hipgnosis Song Management founder Merck Mercuriadis was instrumental in mobilizing the campaign for Salehi. But Mercuriadis’ focus on Iran dates back to 1979. “The ayatollahs, Khomeini in particular, made a very big impression on me,” he says. “That was the first time I saw religion being used in a way to make you fear.”
Mercuriadis credits music with shaping his political awareness. Whether through Marvin Gaye, Curtis Mayfield, Stevie Wonder, or Sam Cooke, he points to music as a catalyst for social change. When advocacy for Salehi became urgent, he approached musicians with a blunt appeal: “In an environment where using your voice can get you killed, I was very clear that this is a musician who has been using his voice to make people aware of what’s happening, to inspire people to help bring change. You never want those voices to be taken away. We can’t let him go down like this. You can’t say no to that.”
While Salehi remains in Iran under the watchful eye of the regime, preeminent Iranian female rapper Justina was forced into exile seven years ago. As outspoken as Salehi — perhaps even more so — she now lives in Sweden. Last year she released “Tehran,” a love letter to the home city she misses deeply, and before that, “Chasm (Yes Sir!),” whose video was directed by Iranian German filmmaker Omid Mirnour, known for the documentary Rap & Revolution Iran. In it, she portrays her experiences being interrogated by the regime forces who eventually ran her out of her country.
She has seen her family once since she left, during a brief reunion in Turkey. When the internet was shut down in January, she was unable to reach them for 10 days. When she finally did, she learned that her mother had broken her arm during the protests. “I’ve tried to forget Iran for years, but I can’t,” she says. “Whenever I write anything, it’s not possible for my thoughts to not go in that direction. I can’t write about anything except pain and sadness.”
Musician Lisa Coleman of Wendy & Lisa has been unwavering in her public support of Iran, and relates to what Justina is experiencing. “As an artist, what really touches me is the problems and the trouble people have expressing themselves creatively and feeling safe about it,” she says. “Being an artist is a reflection and a question, and the regime doesn’t want to allow that. It’s heartbreaking and horrible.”
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Before the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s economy ranked among the top 20 globally. Alongside this came a flourishing of the arts. Iranian musicians blanketed radio and television airwaves. Domestically written, produced, and performed films and series felt inexhaustible and were widely popular. A café culture thrived, along with discos, movie theaters, and cabarets.
“Between the years 1974 to 1979, Iranians lived life to the fullest,” says president of Chaplin Recording Studios Faryal Ganjehei, who left Iran as a child in 1979. “Everything was accessible to us. Then it was lights out.”
Through her position at Chaplin (the former Jim Henson lot purchased by John Mayer and filmmaker McG in 2025), where she’s worked for 25 years, Ganjehei has helped connect Iranian musicians to the world. She brought Iran’s biggest pop star, Googoosh, to Ed Sheeran to feature on his “Iranian” hit, “Azizam.” She also connected another Iranian pop star, Andy Madadian, with Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, and Don Was for a Farsi language version of “Stand by Me” in 2013, a message of solidarity for the people of Iran.
Last year, the Southern California-based, Iranian Armenian-run Discotchari label released Tehrangeles Vice: Iranian Diaspora Pop 1983–1993. The 12-track vinyl reissue features handpicked and remastered songs from the era. Zachary Asdourian, Discotchari’s co-founder and the compilation’s executive producer, says, “Not only did the Islamic Republic brand this music as immoral, decadent and vulgar, it created a smear campaign around the cultural roots of the music.”
Asdourian is a second-generation Iranian Armenian Christian. He has never been to Iran, but he grew up immersed in its lore, shaped by the folk tales he heard and by the large Iranian diaspora that surrounded him. His motivation for assembling Tehrangeles Vice is to “steward our cultural heritage,” he says.
“You hear the words ‘Islamic Republic,’ and you get such a monolithic idea of what Iran is. For me to talk about the legacy of Iranian history is to talk about a time where we coexisted with the same people that literally, on the other side of the border, we’re having this existential crisis with. The legacy of Iran I wanted to share through this compilation was the multinational, multi-confessional, colorful, tolerant history and culture expressed through music — as it has been before.”
His sentiments are echoed by Osley, who says, “In Iranians’ DNA, down to our molecular core, is peace and coexistence that dates to the start of civilization. On the flip side, you have a regime whose molecular DNA is the destruction of everything. That is the antithesis of who we are as Iranians.”
“What’s happening in Iran isn’t what’s happened in other parts of the Middle East,” says Sali Kharazi, artist manager at Full Stop Management. “This is a fight for a culture that existed before these religious psychopaths took over and made all of this crap about God. God has been lost in this regime that just wants to control people.”
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“Iranian people have been oppressed for a very long time,” says Coleman. “What’s both inspiring and disturbing is that so many of the protesters are young. They see the truth. They know they’re not supposed to be living this way. That this is not normal. They write letters before they go out, knowing pretty much they probably won’t come back. Americans can’t relate to that. They can’t even imagine it. They just put it aside. That happens to people who are different.”
Except that Iranians are not so different. One of the main contentions they have is that they want the opportunity to live a normal life, but the Islamic regime has made that impossible for the majority of them. A former teen pop star from Oklahoma, Taylor Hanson — the singer, songwriter and member of the trio Hanson — feels the root of this perceived difference is fear.
“The times I felt the angriest about the issue of Iran is when I’ve spoken with people that have tried to compare it to things we experience in our country,” he says. “We all know America has a ton of problems. No one argues about that. But the level of violence, the level of inhumanity, the level of atrocity in Iran, is what moves me. We need to paint that picture of Iranian people. Think about the incredible change in our world if there were to be a free Iran.”
In 2023, Hanson launched the Voices Project to bring people together to sing his reimagining of Hajipour’s song as “Baraye—For Woman Life Freedom.” The song was recorded at Chaplin — facilitated by Ganjehei, in the same room where “We Are the World” was made. “What hit me like a ton of bricks related to the nation of Iran, was recognizing the headlines are a statement about a government, not about a people that are crying for freedom. A people that are not their government, but that are speaking in a language every human should understand. They are craving what all humans crave. With that, I could cut straight past the politics and the noise. This is simple. A nation of oppressed people are living under a regime of terror, and they’re calling on the world to see them.”
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Instagram is the eyes and ears of Iran. It is the primary source of reliable news for Iranians worldwide. It’s how people inside the country get information out, and how they communicate with one another. On IG, feeds are visuals of dancing and cheering in the streets, cars rhythmically honking their horns, and voices declaring with laughter, “They did it!” Among the Iranian diaspora are posts and messages stating, “I’m crying.” Meanwhile, the fundamentalist followers, a marked minority, are exhibiting performative grief broadcast by state television. “We all have a responsibility to put our humanity first,” adds Mercuriadis. “Whether it’s a government that is subjecting its people to unbelievable oppression, or racism in your backyard, you have a responsibility to stand up and use whatever platform you have, whether that is the three people that live on your street, or the people that pay attention to you because you’ve built a career that gives you a wider reach.”
“Three years ago, who would have thought that you would have to explain that the regime are the bad guys?” says Osley. “This is a great opportunity to amplify and be the voice of the Iranian people, which is all we’re doing and we’re the only culture being talked down to. Would you do this to any other race or ethnicity?
“The unbelievable strength of Iranians inside Iran, and the millions of us that are going to go back from the outside as the shoulder to lean on for our fellow Iranians after 50 years of the pain they’ve experienced, to stand next to them, to hug them, to hold one another.” Osley continues. “It is that deep love that is going to heal Iran after this regime falls. This is what analysts have not considered: the love in the heart of the Iranian soul. In that I hold great hope.”
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