Payam* left his home – and many of his family members – in Iran at age 17, seeking a life of freedom in Australia.
From Brisbane, the Iranian Australian has maintained connections to family members living under the authoritarian regime, and has been watching its brutality from afar with growing unease.
Then, his cousin delivered the news that one of their family members had been killed in one of the many anti-government protests that swept through the country over the past two weeks.
Payam received the call about the death of Eli* last week, when the regime partially eased the communication blackout amid one of the most destabilising episodes of unrest the Iranian regime has faced in years.
According to the account provided to Payam, Eli was standing next to her older sister during a protest in Karaj, about 44km from Tehran, when she was shot dead on 8 January.
“She passed away straight away there … and the sister is going through a really rough time at the moment,” he says.
Payam says another relative was required to open hundreds of body bags before she discovered the 39-year-old’s body.
“She found her after 700 bodies,” Payam says, referring to claims made by his family in Iran.
“She was exhausted and couldn’t stop crying as she looked at the faces of people shot. There was blood everywhere.
“She had to look at every single one of them.”
‘Only two options’ for body
Payam is among many members of Australia’s Iranian community mourning loved ones killed by the regime in its crackdown against the demonstrations.
But others have told Guardian Australia they are yet to hear from family. They continue to wait to find out the fate of their loved ones – more than 11 days after authorities plunged the country into a communication blackout in an attempt to quell protests.
During the protests, footage emerged from the Kahrizak forensic medicine centre in Tehran, showing distressed families looking for loved ones among body bags on the floor.
On Thursday, the Iranian supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, acknowledged for the first time that thousands of people were killed during the protests.
Eli’s death occurred in the same city and on the same day that Erfan Soltani – the first Iranian protester to be sentenced to death during the current unrest – was arrested. Donald Trump had threatened that the US would “take very strong action” if such executions were carried out, but on the weekend claimed to have helped prevent 800 of them, including that of Soltani’s.
Payam claimed authorities gave Eli’s immediate family the option to pay the equivalent of $9,000 to retrieve her body. Alternatively, they could sign a form stating that Eli was part of the regime and killed by civilians, and they would not be charged.
“That was the only two options,” he says.
Payam says they borrowed money to pay for the body to be retrieved.
“I can’t really explain how we feel about that. It’s really the anger and hate about the regime because they keep doing these things to people in Iran,” he says.
“It just makes us more angry and more wanting to help from outside of Iran.”
Payam says when he visited Iran he and his partner would catch up with his cousins and their families. He now fears for them.
“We can’t sleep properly at night. We just keep waking up in the middle of the night, keep looking at the news,” he says.
The protests, initially sparked by the country’s economic crisis and concerns about mismanagement by the country’s theocratic leaders, spiralled into a wider anti-government movement, with protesters chanting “death to the dictator”, a reference to the supreme leader.
Payam’s sisters, who live in Iran, have also been participating in the recent demonstrations, which he says have united young people across the country.
“They [young people] want freedom as well as a good life, not waking up every day and see something doubled [in price] overnight. Pretty much everyone in Iran has something in common, which is [the desire] to have a better life.”
*Names have been changed due to safety concerns for family members
