Hannah Jaffe-Walt

Coming up, more from inside Iran, including that day President Trump said a whole civilization will die tonight.

What was that like?

That's in a minute from Chicago Public Radio when our program continues.

It's This American Life.

I'm Hannah Jaffe-Walt, sitting in for Ira Glass.

Today's show, we hear from people inside Iran, people who are living through a war and an Internet blackout that the U.N.

Human Rights Office has said is, quote, one of the longest and most severe shutdowns ever recorded globally.

We're hearing what that's like from Iranians who managed to get voice memos out of the country in spite of it being difficult and dangerous to send them.

Act three, neighbors, friends and lovers.

Iran is a big country.

It had deep divisions before the war.

There were massive protests against the Islamic Republic and a brutal crackdown just over a month before America and Israel attacked.

And in the messages we got, responses to the war were all over the map.

Fahid owns a small business.

He's in his mid-40s, lives on the outskirts of a big city in northern Iran.

He despises the Islamic regime, wants a secular democracy in Iran.

The protests and massacres in January convinced Fahid that change will never happen without outside help.

Omid works at a film studio in Tehran.

He makes all sorts of content.

He worked on a candid camera show recently.