January 21, 2026

On Iran: Where Is Everyone?

topic:	Human Rights
tags:	#Iran, #iranian protests, #Israel
located:	Iran
by:	Katharina Höftmann Ciobotaru

Since the end of December, the Iranian people have once again been trying with all their strength to overthrow the Islamic regime in their country. What began with protests by traders in the bazaars quickly spread to university students and other segments of society. For several days, the country was under an almost complete blackout. Although some alternative internet connections initially survived the regime’s total shutdown, they too were eventually cut. Once again, people in Iran are left entirely on their own. Their struggle for freedom, or even just for slightly better living conditions, unfolded while the rest of the world carried on.

As my friend and co-author of our book Über den Hass hinweg (Beyond Hatred), Sohrab Shahname, summed it up in an Instagram post: Iranians have repeatedly tried over the past decades to bring about change in their lives. They protested media bans in 1999, took to the streets against election fraud in 2009, expressed solidarity with the Arab Spring in 2010, and rose up against rising prices and inflation in 2017. Then in 2019, fuel price hikes triggered nationwide protests; in 2022, it was the systematic oppression of women. And now, in 2026, a surging dollar once again lays bare the economic pressure under which people are forced to live.

They have received little to no help from outside. At times, sanctions against the regime of the Islamic Republic were tightened; at other times, they were eased. There were moments of greater or lesser solidarity, with protests in London or New York. Yet, above all, there has been a great deal of silence.

Even then, on the day when numbers began to emerge about how many demonstrators had already been murdered by the mullahs’ henchmen, with estimates ranging between 2,000 and 12,000, Spiegel Online could think of nothing better than to publish an interview with an Israeli expert on Iran. Images of countless body bags across the country told a far more emotional story than any number ever could. On Süddeutsche Zeitung Online, Why Israel Is Still Holding Back on Iran, likewise seemed to be the only one that came to journalists’ minds.

Beyond a geopolitical talking point

Iran has a 2,500-year cultural history, and yet all that seems to interest people in Germany is Israel’s position in all of this.

‘No Jews, no news,’ people like to say. I’ve always found that phrase a bit hackneyed. But that does not mean it isn’t true. Why do people seem to care about the Middle East only when Israel is involved? Why are there protests for Gaza, but not for the Kurds in Syria, who are also being displaced and massacred right now by a government that, incidentally, is being actively courted across the West?

Why is there virtually no protest at all for the Iranian people, who are once again fighting for their lives against an openly fascist regime?

I am not an Iran expert at all. For that, please turn to my incredible colleague Shahrzad Eden Osterer or my co-author Sohrab Shahname. Still, I am watching in disbelief as the world I also inhabit, the world of German influencers, political analysts, and armchair warriors who over the past two and a half years have almost never lacked an opinion on Israel and Gaza, has now fallen eerily silent.

It is clear that worldviews have been shifting for some time. Communism is back in fashion. Radical Islam is all too often glossed over out of a misplaced fear of being accused of Islamophobia. We live in a post-truth age in which political education is increasingly sourced from Instagram reels, and in which many seem utterly incapable of approaching complex issues with even a minimal tolerance for ambiguity or balance. But never has this been clearer to me than it is now.

Image by Tasnim News Agency, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=181120755