Juliette

One night around midnight, when he was about 13 years old, he took a black spray paint bottle to a wall in his neighborhood, and he spray painted a message.

Right after he wrote the message, he was scared.

If he was caught, he could be severely punished.

But when that didn't happen, he started to feel lighter.

This was his first act of protest.

And as the years went by, he realized he wasn't alone.

first in conversations with friends and even family.

But then later, during one of the last years he was in high school, while he was on his way home from the grocery store, he accidentally came upon a mass protest.

When he saw that, he realized many Iranians were keeping secrets like his.

And many wanted change.

So he eventually decided to join them.

And for nearly every demonstration in Tehran after that, sees as he protested too.

He was protesting for an end to the regime.

He wanted a democracy.

And as the years went by, with new waves of crowds that formed over various issues, he thought that if enough people showed up, change would be possible.

So this past January, when there were nationwide protests, he went out to the streets again in Tehran.

He told me that he went to a bridge, and he looked out at these overwhelming crowds of people.

Iran's security forces open-fired on protesters in at least six different neighborhoods in Tehran.

There were accounts of people being shot in the head, in the eyes.

Similar massacres were unfolding in cities across the country.