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oxygenOn the afternoon of late January, the British-Iranian comedian Omid Djalili arrived independentWearing a navy blue military style jacket in the office.
“I dress like Zelensky,” said the 60-year-old, whose playful attitude can be seen in his stand-up comedy and performances in blockbusters such as “The Mummy” and “Gladiator.”
Recently, Jalili has been fighting for freedom in Iran since the start of the protests in Iran and the deadly crackdown by the Islamic regime.
Jalili turned his social media over to the “voiceless,” as he put it, Iranians caught up in the internet blockade imposed by the Islamic Republic.
The protests were initially sparked by soaring prices and a devalued currency, but quickly escalated into nationwide demonstrations calling for the end of the government.
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At around 8pm on January 8, an hour after the internet shutdown began, the regime began firing deadly bullets at protesters.
According to human rights groups such as Amnesty International, Iran’s leaders blocked the Internet to cover up the massacre that took place on January 8 and 9. Therefore, the death toll cannot be verified.
Based on medical reports collected sunday timesAt least 16,500-18,000 people have died so far.
Jalili cited research from the New York-based advocacy group International Center for Human Rights (ICHR).
The ICHR estimates that since the protests began on December 28, 43,000 people were killed by the regime and 350,000 injured – 10,000 of them are blind.
The ICHR said its estimate was based on “investigations, field research, verification of images and videos received, and interviews with multiple sources within Iran.”
Jalili was born in London to Iranian parents and has only visited Iran twice in his life. Once when he was three years old and the last time in 1971 when he was six.
He has been one of the UK’s best-known British-Iranians since rising to prominence in the mid-1990s with his breakthrough stand-up show “The Chunky Kebab Owner’s Son,” which won critical acclaim and began appearing regularly in TV and film productions.
As a result, he remains focused on his parents’ country of birth and has been outspoken about human rights abuses in Iran.
“It seems like every time there’s an uprising, people are not only suppressed but beaten and killed,” he said.
He was particularly moved by the 2022 Women, Life, Freedom movement, sparked by the police killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. Amini was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly and died in police custody.
Amini is Kurdish, part of a historically persecuted Iranian minority. Jalili and his family are followers of the Baha’i Faith.
Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Baha’is have faced systematic persecution by the state. Some Baha’is are barred from employment and college. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has confiscated the property of Baha’i families.
President Donald Trump has ordered a “massive armada” of U.S. Navy ships off the coast of Iran as tensions between Washington and Tehran continue to simmer.
Iran has warned that it would immediately retaliate against any U.S. attack. Trump has said he hopes to negotiate with Iran and reach a deal over its nuclear program.
For Jalili, the time for negotiating with the Iranian regime is over; trying to make deals with a regime that is massacring its own civilians is abhorrent.
“It’s really important that the Armada is there right now,” Jalili said, but he argued that intervention would require more than just the United States or Israel; This is a moment when the whole world should stand up.
He was pleased to see Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) added to the EU’s terrorist list following a deadly crackdown. He said this would make it harder for countries to deal with the regime.
When considering previous U.S. military operations in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan, Jalili recognized that concerns that intervention would not necessarily lead to democracy were legitimate.
But “if someone supports the Iranian people, the Iranian people will not refuse,” he said.
Jalili does not consider himself a political figure; He said he was simply relaying what he had observed from the Iranian people.
Judging from the videos he has seen, he believes the exiled crown prince and son of the former king, Reza Pahlavi, has support from Iranian protesters.
If foreign intervention came and the regime was overthrown, he would welcome Pahlavi as the “guardian of the transition” toward a new democratic government.
“He seemed like a very reasonable, well-educated man whose heart was in the right place,” Jalili said.
Being a prominent voice for the Iranian people in the UK does take its toll.
The day I talked to Jalili independenthe drove four hours from Bridport in Dorset, where he performed a stand-up comedy tour.
Before starting his performance, Jalili went out to talk to the audience, stressing that this was a very difficult time for Iranians and humanity in general. Many people don’t even know what’s going on in Iran, or they find it hard to believe.
“People don’t believe that another country’s security forces can just run up to unarmed civilians and shoot them in the head,” Jalili said.
“But at the same time, you see the incredible courage of the Iranians. They’re still fighting back, and they’re saying, ‘We’re going to fight you to the end, and you’re going to have to kill us all.'”
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Some Iranian friends called him and suggested that maybe he should work less. Indeed, it was sometimes difficult for him to balance his day job as a comedian with his role fighting for the rights of Iranians.
It can feel contradictory to try to be funny when so many terrible things are happening in Iran.
But then he thought of those in Iran who continue to protest despite risking their lives, their families and their loved ones.
“When people are together, we are happy, we are laughing, we are discussing these things, which is exactly what the regime does not want us to do,” he said. Then Jalili paused and shifted defiantly in his chair.
“You know what? I’m going to do it,” he said.