A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm A Martínez in Culver City, California.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
I'm Steve Inskeep in Washington, D.C.
LEILA FADEL, HOST:
And I'm Leila Fadel in Sulaymaniyah in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. I'm not far from the border with Iran, a border that Iranians can normally pass through. But these days, as the U.S. and Israel pound Iran with airstrikes, that border crossing is closed. Most of the Iranians on this side made their way in the months and years before these attacks. Many are now watching the war and wondering, is this the end of the Islamic republic? Will those who fled soon be able to return home?
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FADEL: These are questions 32-year-old Yassir Fattahi (ph) has been pondering.
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FADEL: Over tea and cookies at his friend's apartment, he explains why he fled Iran, speaking through interpreter Binar Fiaqarin (ph).
YASSIR FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) Because of the pressure that has been on me by the Islamic regime, on my family and on my life.
FADEL: In 2022, the country erupted in protest after a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Jina Amini, died in police custody. The case prompted the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. It was an uprising Iran's security forces brutally crushed. Fattahi, a nurse, treated injured protesters in secret.
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) There were injuries from shrapnels. There were injuries from some sort of bullets that I have never seen in my life.
FADEL: And they don't go to the hospital, like, the hospital that you worked at?
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) They were not going to the hospitals because if they go to the hospital, they have been arrested for crimes against the government or more severe punishment by the government.
FADEL: At around this time, a teen-aged family friend was shot and killed. When friends and family gathered to mourn, security forces opened fire on the procession, and they killed Fattahi's father.
I'm so sorry.
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) This is something that we have to pay for freedom.
FADEL: His family has continued paying ever since with interrogations, harassment. When intelligence officials insisted Fattahi say it wasn't the regime that killed his father, he refused to lie. He felt his arrest was imminent and fled Iran a few months ago. In January, he watched protests sweep across the country again. Security forces killed thousands of people for protesting Iran's collapsing economy. So when the U.S. and Israeli attacks started, when they assassinated the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, he was euphoric.
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) It was unbelievable. I was not knowing what to do in happiness. But at the same time, I was hoping that he was not getting killed so that we could bring him into justice and answer for all the crimes that he has done because by killing a dictator, you don't end a dictatorship.
FADEL: He says, though, he's under no illusion that Trump's goal is human rights and democracy for Iranians.
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) Trump doesn't care about me living or not living. But we hope that this war weaken the Iranian regime so that the people can finish the job.
BINAR FIAQARIN: Wherever you feel.
FAYEGH RASOULI: (Non-English language spoken).
FADEL: In Irbil, a three-hour drive away, we meet Fayegh Rasouli (ph).
RASOULI: (Non-English language spoken).
FIAQARIN: Sit there. Sorry. We don't have couches.
FADEL: No, this is great.
We sit on the floor. He holds a folder in his hands.
What is this folder?
RASOULI: (Non-English language spoken).
FADEL: So you can't see this right now, but he's pointing to a folder, and it's basically a chart with pictures of children who he says the Iranian government has killed.
Dozens of children's lives cut short in 2022, the same protest Fattahi's friend and father were killed in. Rasouli is one of many activists documenting these killings.
RASOULI: (Through interpreter) Zakaria Khayal was a 16-years-old kid who have been shot and killed. He was 50 meters away from me during the protest.
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RASOULI: (Through interpreter, crying) Kids who were 9 years old, 8 years old, 7 years old. Only 7 years old. What does a 7-years-old kid does?
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GISSOU NIA: That's the kind of grassroots documentation gathering that goes to inform the work of NGOs in this space.
FADEL: Gissou Nia is a U.S.-based human rights lawyer. She says witness accounts of alleged crimes by the Iranian regime are essential for the day prosecution might be possible.
NIA: The nurse's firsthand testimony is something that would be admissible in a courtroom. The individual who has, you know, the file of all the children that have been killed, they're really the backbone of the kinds of information sourcing that we get from the country.
FADEL: Her work as a human rights lawyer is complicated right now.
NIA: There were people that expressed to me that they wished that Ali Khamenei had also been in a dock, in a courtroom dock, and needed to face criminal charges. But what I will say is that most people were grateful that now at least he met some kind of fate. And that is because I think many realized the impossibility of bringing him into a courtroom. This is a man who hadn't traveled outside of Iran since 1989, or at least since he had taken up his tenure as supreme leader. And so the idea of him traveling somewhere where he could be arrested or extradited was slim to none. He could have potentially been tried in a future free Iran, but in order to get to a future free Iran, there's a real question about if he had remained in power, would that happen?
So I think many of them just came to an acceptance that this is, you know, the best outcome that they could hope for, given the very real circumstances. And we saw many celebrations inside the country. If I can be really candid, it's been a difficult reality to grapple with, but I have to be guided by a victim-centered approach to this. And when the victims feel that sense of deep relief and celebration, it's something that is part of this reality. It's complicated.
FADEL: The Islamic republic is in a fight for its life. Whether it survives or not will determine the fate of those in power and those they've ruled over for decades. For now, people like Fayegh Rasouli and Yassir Fattahi wait, and the wait is difficult. Here again is Fattahi.
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) Life is - here is fine, but at the same time, I don't have work. The situation is quite hard here.
FADEL: His family is still in Iran. His older brother is dying...
FATTAHI: ALS.
FADEL: ...Of ALS. When we ask how he's doing, he breaks for the first time.
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter, crying) Only his eyes work.
FADEL: With an ongoing internet blackout, he can't reach his family.
FATTAHI: (Through interpreter) I sent texts and messages for my family, but I don't receive any response.
FADEL: Until something changes, it's too much of a risk for Yassir Fattahi to go home.
(SOUNDBITE OF JOSEPH TAWADROS' "THE BLUEBIRD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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