I really appreciate your openness and honesty — and I completely get where you’re coming from. It’s true: most of what the world hears about Iran passes through the lens of Western media, which often frames everything in terms of geopolitics and regime change. But living as an Iranian is very different from consuming Iran through TikTok or headlines.

About the videos you’ve seen: yes, there are women in Tehran malls or crowded spaces who push the boundaries. But that doesn’t mean the regime allows it — it means people resist every day at personal risk. The same women you see without a headscarf in public could be stopped, harassed, fined, or worse the very next minute. What looks “normal” in a clip is often an act of daily defiance.

Regarding “Free Iran” — you’re right, the term is loaded and often co-opted by outside forces with their own agendas. Many Iranians also dislike it when it’s used as a slogan without context. But for us, “free” means something very concrete: being able to live without fear of morality police, without censorship, without executions for protest, without a state that treats our bodies and voices as property. We’re not asking for a copy of the West — we’re asking for dignity, safety, and the ability to shape our own future.

And here’s something important: Iran is not like other Muslim-majority countries. Because of our Persian identity and culture, there’s a deep passion for life — poetry, art, music, even wine. These things are part of who we are, and the regime has spent decades trying (and failing) to erase them. What you see in the people — that hunger for expression — is thousands of years of culture pushing back against authoritarianism.

As for the idea that the regime is “forced” to overreach because of foreign pressure — I understand the argument, but from inside, it doesn’t hold. The scale of repression we live under far exceeds what could be explained by foreign meddling. Torturing protesters, executing minors, imprisoning artists, banning music, and silencing women isn’t just about “defense.” It’s about control. It’s systemic.

And like you said — targeting children, killing protesters, brutalizing women — these things can never be justified as “strategic necessity.” They reveal the true nature of the system.

So yes — foreign powers absolutely meddle in the Middle East, and I reject Western hypocrisy as much as anyone. But the Iranian regime’s brutality is not a reaction — it’s a choice. And the people paying the price are ordinary Iranians who want the same thing every human wants: to live free from fear — and to live fully, with our poetry, our music, and our joy intact.

Like Terence McKenna said: our thoughts and our bodies are a domain free from government control. And that’s the freedom Iranians fight for every day.