The Iranian Voices They Don’t Want You to Hear

When Iranians protest inside the country, they are called foreign agents. When they speak outside, they are called manipulated. But fear is not agreement, and silence is not support.

Written By: Sam Nik

Before anything else needs to be said, this must be made crystal clear: My article was submitted to the Daily Maverick as a right of reply. It was sent multiple times. Follow-ups were sent. There was no acknowledgement. No response. Just silence. For a publication that positions itself as a platform for debate, accountability and fairness, that silence is not neutral, but rather a calculated decision. Because when someone writes about you, questions your credibility, and attempts to define your voice - you do not wait indefinitely for permission to respond.

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Amir Bagherioromi, I read your article. And let’s not pretend. You know exactly who you are talking about. I am one of those people.

You call us a “small but vocal group.” You suggest we are influenced. That we are somehow not speaking for ourselves. Let me answer you plainly: I am not afraid to speak. But many others are. Not because they agree with you, but because they know what happens when they don’t.

They know about the calls from unknown numbers, the quiet threats, the warnings passed through community whatsapp groups, the reality that their families back in Iran can be put in danger.

You live here. You know this.

So when you present silence as agreement, you are not misunderstanding the diaspora. You are choosing to ignore the fear it lives under.

If you are speaking for Iranians, then speak honestly. Where was your voice when tens of thousands of civilians were killed? Where were you when people were being hunted in the streets, when prisons were filling, when executions continued? Where was your voice when the internet was shut down across Iran for weeks on end, cutting millions off from the world? Where was your voice for the families who had no way of knowing if their loved ones were alive? Where was your voice when information was deliberately blocked so the world could not see what was happening? These are not small details. They are the reality. And yet, they are missing from your narrative.

There was a time when you spoke clearly about the regime. We remember you during the Mahsa Amini protests, calling out its brutality, speaking about the violence, the oppression, the need for accountability. You even called on President Ramaphosa to hold the Iranian Ambassador to South Africa accountable and to block president Raisi from entering the country. There was no confusion then about who the problem was. So what changed? Where is that voice now? Where is that clarity? Or has your hostility toward Israel become so consuming that you would rather redirect the conversation entirely - even if it means softening the reality of the very regime you once condemned?

Because this shift is not subtle. It is visible in your own words. You write now as if you are offering balance. But your own words and X posts say otherwise.

You have said: “The world can have peace or Israel. It can’t have both.” You have praised leaders who “never bow down to Zionists or imperialists.” You have argued that “no country in the world needs a regime change as much as the United States does.” and “Never in my life have I been this proud to be an Iranian-South African. Two countries where their people are unbelievably resilient, and their leaders courageous and intelligent enough to never bow down to Zionists or imperialist.”

This is not balanced analysis. It is a fixed lens. Radicalised. And coming from someone who describes himself as ‘a strategic communications and campaigns specialist with more than a decade’s experience shaping public narratives’, that matters. Because this is not casual commentary. It is deliberate framing.

A lens so shaped by hostility toward Israel that you fail to recognise something many of us do: that not every external force is the enemy you have been taught it is. The regime spent decades manufacturing that hatred, and even from the safety of South Africa, it has clearly stayed with you.

But then there is your own tweet from January 16 2015:

“I can tweet freely about Iran now. I was really worried about getting arrested at the border.”

That sentence alone unravels everything.

You were afraid of the regime.

Just like the rest of us.

You frame Israel and the United States as the central problem. But many of us remember something else. When Iranians cried out, it was often Israel and the USA that amplified those voices. It was global pressure that forced the world to look. You may choose to reduce that to ideology. We don’t.

You also know something else.

You say there is no real support for alternatives. But you know that is not true.

You have seen the footage, just like the rest of us. Across cities in Iran from Tehran to Mashhad, from universities to bazaars people have taken to the streets chanting “Javid Shah” - “Long live the Shah.”

This is not a slogan invented in exile. It is being shouted inside Iran, at real risk, by people who know exactly what it means if they are heard.It is not nostalgia. It is rejection. A rejection of the Islamic Republic so complete that people are now openly calling for what was once unthinkable, the end of the system entirely. That shift does not happen by accident. And alongside it, whether you agree with him or not, Reza Pahlavi has become one of the most recognised and supported opposition figures - not because of campaigns, but because people are searching for something, anything, beyond what they are living under.

You don’t have to support him.

But pretending that this support does not exist - or reducing it to manipulation - is not honest.

When Iranians protest inside the country, they are called foreign agents. When they speak outside, they are called manipulated. When they demand change, they are dismissed. Now you repeat that language - about your own people.

That is not a small thing.

I do not want war. But I also will not stay silent about a regime that has killed its own people, silenced dissent, shut down the internet to hide its actions, controlled how people live - including women, every single day, in every single way. We do not need to choose between opposing war and acknowledging reality. We can do both.

And despite everything, you are still welcome to stand with us. Not the version of us you describe in your article, but the real, everyday Iranians who have lived this, who still carry it, and who refuse to be intimidated into silence. The ones who care deeply about Iran, who speak even when it comes at a cost, and who will not bow to the threats of a brutal regime that survives on fear. More people would speak if they were not harassed, followed, called, and threatened - if their families back home were not used as leverage. You know this. You have lived close enough to it to understand it. The door is not closed. But it requires honesty.

You say “not in our name.”

So let me answer you directly.

Not in my name will our voices be reduced.
Not in my name will fear be mistaken for agreement.
Not in my name will those of us who speak out be dismissed as something we are not.

And not in my name will someone who knows exactly how this system works pretend that silence means support.

You know who we are.

And despite everything - we are still speaking.

Sam Nik is an Iranian activist based in South Africa, where she has lived since fleeing Iran five years ago. With her family still in Iran, Sam’s personal experience informs her deep commitment to the struggle for freedom and human rights for the Iranian people under the Islamic Republic. She is a passionate voice for the liberation of Iranians from authoritarian rule, drawing on her lived experience and ongoing connections to her homeland to speak on issues of governance, civic rights, and social justice. Sam regularly engages in public discourse, advocating for international awareness and support for movements pushing for democratic change in Iran. Her work focuses on amplifying the voices of those still inside the country, raising awareness of human rights abuses, and mobilising support for Iranian freedoms on a global stage.