Two firsthand accounts—from an unnamed city and from Shiraz—describe nights of gunfire and drones, street encirclement and arrests, a near-total communications blackout, and deepening economic freefall.
This account reached Radio Zamaneh from one city in Iran. To protect the writer, we are not publishing the author’s real name or the name of the city.
Gunfire, drones, and the smell that stays
Bursts of gunfire. Continuous shooting. Single shots late at night. Scattered rounds after midnight. Drones circling above the city. The trace of these sounds, mixed with the smell of gunpowder, lodges itself in the body’s memory and does not leave.
Our home is near the city center. Because of where it is located, and how it is built, the city’s sounds carry into our courtyard from every direction. You can hear everything.
On Thursday night, January 8 (18 Dey), the shooting was intense and sustained. On Friday night, January 9 (19 Dey), it was even heavier. On Thursday it began around 9:00 p.m. On Friday it started before 8:00 p.m. For nearly two hours it continued nonstop at full intensity, and it could still be heard until midnight.
The drones appeared from Friday onward, the city’s “bloody Friday.” When they flew low, the noise was eerie and frightening. When they flew higher, the sound was oddly mundane, like a small motorbike engine.
By Saturday night, January 10 (20 Dey), the gunfire had lessened. But despite a “victory parade” held on Sunday night, January 11 (21 Dey), scattered shots continued at night for about a week. Drones remained in the sky for several days after the parade. Two weeks after the bloody Friday, on the first Thursday and Friday nights of Bahman, occasional shots could still be heard from parts of the city.
A city you could feel changing
I had never heard or seen the city like this. A city known for caution, even for being a stronghold of the regime, became highly volatile on those bloody Thursday and Friday nights.
I went out only briefly on Thursday, and then again on Saturday, January 10 (20 Dey), and Sunday, January 11 (21 Dey), between about 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. I walked through the main streets and side routes around the city center.
On Thursday night, the central intersection was packed. Yet during the minutes I was there, no slogans could be heard. Security forces had blocked all routes leading into the intersection. In the central square, beside the bazaar in the traditional heart of the city, a large crowd had gathered. You heard more murmuring than chanting. For a few seconds, the voices of several women rose above the noise, chanting “Long live the Shah.” Then the crowd immediately dispersed and shifted to the other side of the square.
That Thursday night, both main streets and side streets were extremely crowded. The main routes and the larger side routes were tightly controlled. People looked different from one another, but many wore masks or covered their faces. The air was bitterly cold. It felt as if people were searching each other’s faces, but also avoiding eye contact. It was often difficult to tell ordinary people from plainclothes security forces.
As you moved from the poorer, lower-lying parts of the city toward the wealthier, higher-lying parts, the forces’ appearance changed. In the lower areas it was mostly plainclothes. In the upper areas, they wore military uniforms, in at least three distinct patterns. In the city center, you saw a mix of plainclothes and uniformed forces. To guard certain buildings, they had brought in heavy weapons. At every intersection, plainclothes or uniformed forces were stationed. Along the routes, plainclothes men and women were constantly moving. Near gathering points, what stood out were small clusters of civilians moving together, groups of a few people at a time, as if trying to stay close and alert.
Control, congestion, and the limit of force
All the main routes leading into the city center were completely closed. The larger side routes remained open, but traffic was severe.
People leaving the square, people entering it, people moving inside it, along with plainclothes forces, everyday passersby, and curious onlookers, all pressed through these routes. The crowd was so dense in the early hours of Thursday’s gathering that security forces had little practical ability to control it.
On Saturday night, the streets were empty compared to Thursday. Fewer cars passed than on normal nights, and there were very few pedestrians. Groups of plainclothes forces moved along the main routes. Near a small park in the city center, one of these groups stopped a very young boy. There were far fewer ordinary pedestrians than plainclothes forces.
A message that spoke for the events
That night, while SMS was still cut, a police message appeared on mobile phones. Even without knowing what had happened elsewhere, the wording made it feel like a script prepared in advance for a planned catastrophe.
The message warned about allegedly “terrorist groups and armed individuals” that were supposedly present at some gatherings the night before. It claimed they were seeking to “manufacture deaths,” announced a “firm decision” to show no tolerance, and promised decisive action against “rioters,” another term the Islamic Republic uses to delegitimize protesters. It urged families to “watch over their young people and teenagers.”
The events were speaking without words. You could tell something grave, and criminal, had taken place.
The blackout, and what came after
The internet situation is still terrible. From January 8 (18 Dey) to January 23 (3 Bahman), the internet was completely cut. Access also varied by region and by provider.
In late January, around January 21 (1 Bahman), email briefly became accessible only through webmail, then was cut again before most people could use it. After that, Google search became accessible and has remained available until today.
International access seems to have returned in some areas on Friday, January 23 (3 Bahman). I was able to access the international internet in a limited way on Saturday, January 24 (4 Bahman), and check social media using Psiphon. After that, email access also became possible again with VPNs.
Even now, stable internet access does not exist in our area. Email and VPNs work only intermittently, with constant disruption. The filtering is harsh and erratic. Sometimes email opens only on the phone, sometimes only in a web browser. Tor does not work on Windows, but in the last few days it has sometimes worked on Linux. Almost no mobile apps function, except a few domestic apps like Divar. In the early days, even Divar’s chat function was blocked, and that restriction remained for several days after SMS service returned.
Economic freefall
The economic situation is terrifying. Recession, inflation, and the rising cost of food and basic necessities feel unprecedented. Prices change week by week. For example, the price of Bahman cigarettes rose from 20,000 tomans to 34,000 tomans in three weeks.
A large share of precarious workers, and jobs that depend on the internet to survive, have been pushed into ruin.
An additional dispatch: Shiraz
Alongside the following narrative, Zamaneh also received brief messages from a witness in Shiraz, sent intermittently under heavy internet disruption.
The witness describes streets filled with people of all ages, from teenagers and children to the elderly, including a very old woman moving with a walker. As the crowd moved toward a government complex, security forces dispersed people with tear gas and pellet rounds, then trapped protesters from two directions. When gunfire began, many tried to escape by climbing garden walls—some lined with broken glass—leaving some seriously injured.
The witness says internet access was sharply restricted as the protests began, and that most circumvention tools, both free and paid, stopped working. Messages could be sent only in short windows, mainly to reassure others that they and their companions were still alive.
They report that most forces present appeared to be from the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij. In one incident, two of their friends ran into a dead-end alley and were caught. Because there were not enough vehicles to transport detainees, security forces moved some people out on foot. Outside the alley, the witness says they saw the bodies of a girl and a boy, apparently killed by live rounds.
They also describe detainees being forced to lie face-down, beaten, and filmed, with officers stepping on their fingers with their boots. They fear some detainees may die in custody without notice, and that families may later be called to collect bodies. They warn as well that security forces are identifying and arresting people whose phones were active near crowded areas and gathering sites.
They shared these details, they said, not only to recount what happened, but to warn about detention conditions, what they called “silent killings,” and digital tracking in the shadow of the blackout.
