Chapter 1: What led to Shirin's parents disappearing into the blackout?
From WBEZ Chicago, it's This American Life. I'm Chana Jafi-Walt, sitting in for Ira Glass. When Shirin Jafari moved to the U.S. as a young adult, there were a lot of promises made to her family back home. We'll be in touch all the time, call you every week, almost like we're in the same town. which is the kind of thing you say. But Shirin actually pulled this off for the last 20 years.
We are a close family. We message several times a day. We send each other reels, like normal stuff. I mean, I don't want to lose those details, those small details of their lives because I am so far away from them.
And they really get into the details, this family. Who ate what? How far was the walk? What's the latest with the dental work? On the phone, by text, random thoughts tossed out at any hour. Have you seen this pumpkin dessert?
Chapter 2: How are people in Iran coping with the war and internet blackout?
Unsolicited suggestions.
I would send them videos of exercises they can do at home.
Like you worrying about them getting enough movement?
I would love them to. Yeah, I would love. Yes, I have been trying to get my mom to do more yoga and my dad to not sit all day. How's that going?
Not great. So just like a constant, ongoing conversation with them?
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Chapter 3: What historical context is provided about Iran's conflict before the current war?
Totally. The kind of thing that you would be asking them if you were actually in the same space and close.
Then, in February, the United States and Israel attacked Iran, where her parents live. And on that very same day, the first day of the war, the Iranian authorities shut the Internet down. Just put the whole country into an Internet blackout. A shockingly effective blackout.
The call wouldn't go through. It would just disconnect. I didn't hear anything.
Chapter 4: What opinions do Iranians have about the war and each other?
It would just disconnect.
Did you do it over and over again?
Yes, of course. I tried so many times. I wouldn't be able to get through. Calling through cell phone was impossible. It just became useless. The cell phone became useless for us. The only way I was able to communicate with them was them calling on a landline to my cell phone. That was the only way they could reach me.
Text message, email, nothing else was working.
After that point, no, they called me on the landline.
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Chapter 5: What happened in Iran the night Trump threatened civilization?
And it's funny when I think of it, you know, there were so many times when I visit them and I would tell them, who needs a landline? Maybe you guys should get rid of this. In this day and age, who needs a landline?
Inside Iran, what was happening was, as soon as the war started, cell phones were only working to call people inside the country. No internet. Communication with the outside world became so difficult, it was like going from breathing regularly out in the open to being underwater and breathing through a straw. Workarounds like VPNs are expensive or janky. Some are flat-out scams.
And they're banned. A private satellite service like Starlink? illegal, and people have been arrested for using it. So, the landline. That was the only way Shirin's parents could reach her. But when bombing got too intense in Tehran, they fled the city, leaving behind the landline. And Shirin was left going for days, sometimes weeks, without hearing from them. Were they okay? Were they safe?
She'd go on social media, scouring every platform, looking for anyone she knew in Iran who had found some brief internet workaround to ask them if they'd heard from her parents.
So sometimes I would stay up at like 3 or 4 a.m.
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Chapter 6: How are communication methods altered by the internet blackout?
looking for any information that I can get from any relative or friend or somebody who knows my parents that could be online. I would just send messages to everybody like, hey, let me know if you are online. Let me know the next time you're connected. Can you give me an update? Just message me as soon as you see this message.
I've heard a lot in the last two months during this war about deals and negotiations. I've heard about bombings by the U.S. and Israel and by Iran. Also lots about oil prices and the stock market and the Strait of Hormuz. But I haven't heard much at all from Iranians inside Iran. What are they seeing and thinking and doing and talking about?
For the last few weeks, we've been working with two journalists in the United States, Fatima Jamalpour and Roxana Saberi, to collect voice memos from inside Iran. So many people sent messages, even though it was difficult and dangerous for them to get these messages out. But people wanted to be heard. I have not heard anything like these from Inside Iran.
I guess that's part of the point of an internet blackout. So that's what I want to share with you. Today's show, we hear from people inside Iran where war is only part of what's going on for them. That's coming up. Stay with us. It's This American Life. Today's episode, Blackout. Other places have had their internet cut off during a war. Iran is not the first.
But this isn't something that's being imposed on the country from the outside. It's being done by the leadership of the country to its own citizens while they're being attacked, in this case, by us, the United States, and Israel. Listening to these messages that people sent us, you really get the feeling for how total a blackout is.
I had the thought listening over and over that every part of what they're saying is not supposed to be heard.
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Chapter 7: What challenges do Iranians face in accessing information during the blackout?
Even basic things like what are people doing every day? A blackout is not a censorship that goes line by line. It is wholesale redaction of people's lives and sometimes deaths. Here's what it took for people to get these messages out of Iran. They had to borrow or pay for a VPN or satellite connection, wait for it to actually work. Starlink connections in Iran keep getting shut down.
They had to not get caught. Iranians have been imprisoned for speaking with foreign media. It sometimes took days to get these voice memos out of the country to us, often short messages, a minute at a time, so the files were small enough to get through.
The messages came from a whole range of people from different parts of Iran, different ages, professions, political views, and also different experiences. Every time I got one of these messages, I stopped what I was doing to listen all the way through. So I want to play them for you the way I heard them, one person after another.
We have edited them, but tried to leave them at a length where you can really hear what people have to say as they go about their day. I'm going to play the messages in four sections. We could call them acts. So here we go. Act one, both and. In these first few messages, people talk about the dual experience of living both in a war and at the same time in an internet blackout.
Both dragging on and on, 63 days and counting as I record this now. First voice memo, Nagin. She's in her early 40s and lives in Tehran with her boyfriend, Amin.
After breakfast, I got ready to go to work, got into my car and drove onto the highway. Then suddenly Amin called and said, Nagin, they're bombing Tehran.
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Chapter 8: What are the implications of a tiered internet access system in Iran?
That was pretty much my last call. All internet lines were suddenly cut off.
This message and all the messages you're going to hear in the show is being read by an actor. To protect everyone's identity in this show, we've changed people's names and we've asked Iranian and Iranian-American actors outside of Iran to listen to the messages and then record what people said and how they said it onto their phones as voice memos.
Some of the original messages were recorded in English. Most were translated from Persian. Once or twice we've changed a small phrase for clarity. Okay, back to Nagin.
And then they started hitting the east of Tehran. These strange, terrifying sounds. We were really not prepared for suddenly being in the middle of the highway and hearing sounds like that. Some people, they just parked their cars and they got out and they were staring at the smoke. They didn't know what to do. Two, three people had gone and hidden in the bushes. It was really strange.
Then this delivery guy on a motorcycle passed by me. He had this Kurdish accent. My window was down and I was completely terrified. He passed my car and said, Bibi finally came. And I was like, my God, nobody even knows how this war is going to end. Who cares about Bibi? I finally made it to Zohar Avadi Street. to go towards my mom's place.
And I saw that they had closed all the schools and they had called all the families to come pick up their children. Some of the mothers were clearly regular office workers. They were wearing their uniform of montos and trousers. And they were running on foot towards the schools because the streets were blocked. And everyone at the school was crying, begging for their children to come out faster.
And I went a little farther and I got to this girl's high school and I saw these girls come out and they took off their headscarves and messed up their hair into the air and they were chanting that, yes, now we are finally becoming free. Then a bomb hit somewhere nearby, and the sound was unbelievable. And at once, people just poured into the streets.
And some people, clearly, they were gathering their things to leave Tehran.
Hello. Hope you're doing well. First, I apologize because unfortunately I've caught a cold these days. My voice is hoarse.
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