Content warning: this article contains references to violence

The USC Persian Academic and Cultural Student Association held a vigil near Tommy Trojan on Friday to mourn those killed by the Iranian government following nearly a month of protests in Iran against the current government and Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. 

Official sources in Iran place the death toll at around 3,000, while outside journalistic institutions have reported that number may be between 12,000 and 30,000.

The vigil began with 12 minutes of silence — one for every thousand activists in Iran said to have been killed so far. The attendees waved Iranian flags and posted QR codes linking to human rights groups with more information about the massacres in Iran. Following the 12 minutes, the attendees together read aloud the names of individuals confirmed to have been killed in Iran.

A document passed out to attendees said that there was no formal order for the names and that the natural overlap was expected. 

Morteza Dehghani, a faculty advisor for the event and professor of psychology as well as computer science, said that Iranians have been revolting against the regime for decades, and that the most recent wave of protests stemmed from economic hardship. 

“Iranian people are a wounded civilization at this point,” Dehghani said, “Any sort of demonstration, even though it might start from economic hardships, peels the wounds of these 46 years and hundreds of thousands killed by the regime. So people, as they see there are demonstrations starting, they join and this becomes a huge event.” 

Dehghani said this specific wave of protests was “very unique,” with small towns and large cities, rich and poor neighborhoods and different ethnic groups protesting in solidarity over the last few weeks. He also said that the regime has never been this brutal in cracking down on them. 

“If you would have asked [me] as an individual citizen, whether I would ever think that foreign intervention would be a good thing, I would have said ‘Absolutely not,’” Dehghani said. “But today, the vast majority of people are basically hoping for the United States to do something, because we know the [European Union] will not do anything. And in reality, our hopes are with the U.S.”

The most recent wave of protests began at the end of December after economic strife came to a head. 

Dehghani said that the recent U.S. invasion of Venezuela “gave [him] confidence” in the possibility of bloodless regime change brought about by foreign intervention. He said he would “absolutely” hope that any foreign intervention in Iran would be less bloody than the Israel-Iran war last year. 

“Just looking at the extent of the killings in Iran,” Dehghani said, “People are thinking, ‘Well, with the war with Israel, 1,000 [Iranians] got killed over a weekend; the Islamic Republic killed probably around 20,000 people.’”

In past protests, some Iranians have opposed foreign intervention and condemned any foreign intervention from the United States and Israel.

Near the vigil, protestors mourned the dead by wrapping themselves in garbage bags and lying on the ground to evoke the appearance of body bags in the street. 

Sara Hariri, an onlooker and USC alum, said that only some have been able to get back online after the government instated an internet blackout.

“I was able to get in touch with a few of my friends, but most of them are still offline,” Hariri said. “They have used every unimaginable torture, weapon, ammunition, against [unarmed] people that were just protesting for their life and freedom for basic means, and they had no mercy, not even for a child who was 3 years old, all the way to an elderly man.”

Hariri said the protests in Iran have been going on for decades, and recalled the violence during the 2009 protests, shortly after she moved to the U.S.

“They were more quiet because it wasn’t as many people,” Hariri said, “But this time they went all out. They killed them with live ammunition, and on the street, there’s blood everywhere. My family says, ‘We can’t go out. We’re scared to get shot.’ There’s hand prints with blood on the walls, people running away, their shoes everywhere.”

Hariri said that she and other followers of Reza Pahlavi, the exiled crown prince of Iran, for the most part, want democracy returned to Iran, and that she was willing to accept foreign intervention to see the supreme leader deposed.

Pahlavi, a USC alum, has championed for a return of democratic government in Iran, allying himself with the U.S. and Israel in their shared goal of deposing the Islamic Republic. While he has said that he is prepared to return home and lead, he has said that his priority is establishing a referendum that allows the Iranian people to decide whether they want to proceed with a monarchy or a new republic. 

“I think that the Islamic Republic is a cancer to the whole world,” Hariri said. “They’re doing that to their own people. Now, if they get more power, they’ll do it to the world, and they’re just terrorists. They’re scary for everyone. So yes, I hope that foreign countries see this, and they get alarmed.”

The vigil quietly came to a close half an hour after it began.