The Virginia-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said more than 7,000 people have been killed, while the whereabouts and safety of more than 11,000 others remain unknown.
The new flare-ups, which began on Saturday, openly challenge the government to repress dissent – even as the final death toll from the earlier wave of violence has yet to be made official. tens of thousands feared dead. Now student protests have broken out for the third day in a row.
“They are not stupid, they are brave,” said an anti-government protester contacted by CBS News in Tehran. ‘Because, as you see with the protests at universities, there is the sun flag and the lion and they are singing ‘Javid Shah’. For both elements there are the death penalty and prison. So they are brave to do this. They’re not stupid.”
The politically charged phrase “Javid Shah” means “Long live the Shah.” It refers to Iran’s last monarch, Mohammed Reza Palavi, who was deposed during the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Within Iran – and in demonstrations abroad – a vocal monarchist movement has advocated for his son, Reza Pahlavito assume leadership if Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the clerical establishment fall.
Reuters/Thilo Schmuelgen
There have also been pro-regime demonstrations and at least one violent clash between opposing groups in Iranian universities. The protester who spoke to CBS News said if you speak out, you risk jail time or death. But now that so many protesters have been killed, she says she feels guilty for being alive.
“I’m so ashamed, I’m so ashamed as a human being that other people are going out into the streets and being killed – and I’m still alive,” she said. “So I want my grief to be a voice for my people.”
She said she was among many Iranians who protested in all 31 provinces and nearly 200 cities in the country last month. On January 8, in Tehran, she said: “I saw people lying on the street because they had been shot. They were dead.” The next day, she said, “I witnessed a girl get shot twice and I was so scared I came back home.”
“Our biggest fear is to see this regime come back to power, so we go and protest again and again,” she said.
The protester did not want to be named for fear of government reprisals. In front of the camera, she covered her face and eyes with a scarf and dark sunglasses. CBS News confirmed she was in Iran. Sunlight streamed into the room where she sat. She also showed a live news program showing current times in the country and said she and many Iranians are closely watching the significant U.S. military buildup in their region.
“I want to see a military intervention in Iran,” she said.
The most advanced American aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, sailed through the Strait of Gibraltar this weekend and is now in the Mediterranean Sea, closer to the Middle East. The Ford and its strike group of cruise missile destroyers, littoral combat ships and likely at least one submarine joined the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln and its associated ships, which have been in the region for nearly a month — creating what officials described as the largest US military build-up in the Middle East since the 2003 Iraq War.
Reuters/Stelios Misinas 
“I have a lot of hope. I’m not afraid at all,” the protester said. “I am happy with the change that the United States is bringing here. I want God to start a war here. I am not a person who has a war interest, but in this situation we have no other chance.”
She said that if U.S. military intervention comes in Iran, she believes “a lot of people will go out” to protest and try to topple the regime.
And as President Trump prepares to deliver his State of the Union Tuesday night she had a message for him — and she hopes he has one for Iran.
“President Trump, you told us help is on the way,” she said. “You promised us that you will help us get through this. They are not stopping the executions in Iran. Eleven people were executed today. Keep your promise and help us.’
She said she does not want negotiations between the US and Iran and called the secretary of state Abbas Araghchi “a terrorist.”
The next round of indirect conversationsmediated by Oman, will take place in Geneva on Thursday.
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