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Mandana Karimi says she feels ‘betrayed by India’, recalls running away from Iran after being arrested at 14
Mandana Karimi spoke at length about the oppression she faced living in Iran. She also spoke about the current situation in the country.
Mandana Karimi on Iran Israel US War (Photo: Mandana Karimi / Instagram)
Mandana Karimi, who was born in Iran but has been living in India for the past few years, has expressed her intention to return to her home country after the death of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In an exclusive chat with SCREEN, Mandana spoke about the current situation in her home country and recalled the oppression that she faced as a 14-year-old, which eventually led her to leave Iran. She also shared that her family is currently living under a blackout in Iran.
Mandana Karimi on US-Israel-Iran war
Talking about her family surviving through the war, Mandana shared, “My entire family is in Iran. There are very vague phone calls that happen with them, of a few minutes or a few seconds at times. I know that they are well, but there is not much communication. The country is still under blackout.”
Mandana said that the news media are not focusing on the years of oppression that the country faced and shared, “Regarding every news that is being played, especially in India, a few things are being shown. Everyone is talking about a few hundred children being killed in a school, but the same regime that has killed thousands in the last incident that happened on January 8 and 9. Thousands of people were executed on the street, but no one is talking about that. No one is talking about the years of oppression by this regime and the people we have lost.”
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“The media is covering the school that Israel and America have attacked, and everyone is saying why the Iranians are celebrating the war. We are not celebrating the war; our celebration is a sign of resistance to this regime and to the mass murder it has committed. Regarding the conversation that Israel and the US shouldn’t have attacked, and why the Iranians are happy about it. It’s because Iranians in Iran asked for an international intervention. Every time they went on the streets, mass murders happened. I want you to know that what’s happening in Iran, the US-Israel intervention has been wanted by the Iranian people,” Mandana added.
On Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s death
Mandana also recalled the atrocities the regime has committed. She said, “I want people to understand this, this is what we have asked for. Finally, after 48 years, we got the help we have been asking for. Yes, Khamenei is dead, but that’s a separate celebration. Now, Iran wants a leader whose name is Reza Shah Pahlavi. He has support in Iran and from Iranians in all other countries. This regime cannot stay, because whoever they decide to put in place of Khamenei, it won’t change anything for the Iranians.”
She further added, “People say his son, Mojtaba Hosseini Khamenei, will come to power, his father’s direct order led to thousands of people being killed, you think his son is going to change anything? All the conversations and meetings the regime had with other countries to talk about nuclear weapons were just for them to buy more time. To get stronger in their missiles and their plan to create more weapons and fund more terrorist organisations. They don’t care about the Iranians, how a rich country like Iran is the poorest society right now.”
‘People are suffering because this regime is funding terrorist organisations’
Sharing more shocking details on the situation in Iran, Mandana Karimi added, “My own family and friends work so hard to just be able to get the basics, I am not talking about a luxury life. How many people are there who are doctors, double PhD, highly educated, who cannot even survive or have basic needs in their lives? People are suffering because this regime is funding terrorist organisations, it’s funding to build more missiles, and this regime cannot be trusted to have any power within the regime or internationally. What they do, they don’t negotiate; they don’t understand conversation or international policy.”
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“If they did, for the past few days when the war happened, they would not have attacked the entire Middle East. The attacks that are happening from Israel and America, the reason they took time to help the Iranians is that the attacks are calculated. It was to make the regime fall. The conversations I had with some people in Iran, every bombing that happens is either a police station, the court, their warehouses, or places where the regime is either executing people or they have their gatherings.”
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She also said, “How the world has suddenly woken up because of this war, and people are saying stop the war. No, we wanted this war; we want this regime to go down.”
‘I have been to jail when I was in Iran’
Mandana Karimi recalled how she suffered in Iran and said, “I don’t understand why India is giving a platform to a murderous regime. Why are all news channels talking about a fake Iran? I am an Iranian, and I have family there. I have been to jail when I was in Iran. It happened multiple times; they arrested us on the streets. I used to be an arts student. We were doing one of our projects in the park, and one of my classmates’ hair was seen from the scarf, so they came and took us, then our parents had to come to the police station. Imagine a girl who is 14, doing her homework in a park, gets arrested because her hair was showing a little bit. Everyone asking to stop the war will never understand our pain. I want people to have empathy towards the Iranian situation. If you are not born there, you won’t understand the scale of things that happened there.”
On her statement about leaving India
Recently, in an interview, Mandana shared how she wanted to leave India and was quite heartbroken. She said, “In India, unfortunately, not many Iranians are talking about the situation. I don’t have support in India. Recently, in an interview, I said my heart is broken because I didn’t get support. I tried to go on the streets at the end of January, but I didn’t get permission. On February 14, there was one of the biggest gatherings where the Shah called all Iranians around the world. I decided to get permission to gather a few people, but no one came. People asked me to keep quiet and not talk about it. A lot of Iranians in India kept calling me and saying it’s not safe. On February 15, when I went on the streets for a candle march, someone got to know, and I was sold out; the police were waiting for me on the street. They knew I was coming.”
“India has kept me safe. I have lived here, had a career here, had relationships, and I had a whole life here. I speak the language, understand the culture, but I feel betrayed. I am not able to voice my opinion peacefully. I get photos and videos from Iran; these people don’t have internet, and a few seconds of what they get, they send pictures of dead bodies or people being murdered. Last night, I was invited on a news channel, and when I challenged them, they attacked me and cut me off,” Mandana shared.
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Mandana Karimi also said, “I am an Iranian woman who has seen this regime, and what it has done to my own life. I had to run away from Iran. I am lucky I found India.”
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‘I have been getting death threats’
While Mandana spoke about her strained relations with her family, she also revealed that taking a stand for her country is only putting her in trouble. She said, “In the beginning, when I left, I didn’t have the support of my family. They were very upset with me and didn’t speak with me for years. Later, when I started doing well, is when they understood that I had a better life outside of Iran. By even knowing how the situation in Iran is, when you love your country, it’s not easy to leave and start a new life. I don’t want to talk about my family situation much, but it’s not easy for any parent to see their child go to another country without any money or knowing the language. So many Iranian girls couldn’t live there.”
Talking about receiving death threats, Mandana added, “I got a phone call last night which I didn’t answer. Then I got a message that said, ‘We are going to kill you, we are giving you 24 hours to delete everything, your Instagram, and just shut up, or we are going to come for your neck.’ There was a picture of a gun, my old address, and a picture of the building where I used to stay. I have been threatened for my life, and my Instagram is flooded with hate messages. Since January, I haven’t worked; all I have done is talk about this, trying to tell people what is happening in Iran.”
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