The statement below was released today by Shervin Ghorbani, on behalf of the Iranian community in South Africa
Today, as Iranians around the world mark Nowruz, the Persian New Year, this should be a time of joy – of family, of fresh beginnings, of hope. But for many of us, it isn’t. We are sitting with anxiety and grief. We can’t reach our families properly. Messages don’t go through. Calls drop. We wait for scraps of news, trying to piece together what is happening back home. And all the while, we are watching a country we love remain trapped under a regime that denies its people even the most basic rights.
Even now, the Iranian people have no real voice. The internet is restricted. Information is controlled. What the world hears are the voices of officials and diplomats – not the voices of ordinary Iranians who are living through this, who are afraid, who are silenced.
Yesterday, in South Africa’s Parliament, we watched elected representatives stand up and defend this regime. We are grateful to the Democratic Alliance’s Ryan Smith for putting part of our previous statement on record – for making sure that, at the very least, our voice was heard in that chamber. We also recognise those who had the courage to call the regime out for what it is. Kenneth Moshoe’s words – “life and death are in the power of the tongue” – were not abstract. They matter, especially when speaking about a regime that uses both to control and silence its people. And while that debate was happening here, back in Iran, young men – including teenagers who took part in the January protests – were being executed.
This is what is being defended.
In January, tens of thousands of Iranians were killed in a brutal crackdown. Children were among them. Families were wiped out. Bodies vanished. Evidence was buried. And we ask, honestly: Where was the outrage? Where were the flowers? Where were the condolences for our brothers and sisters?
Instead, we have watched South African officials stand alongside representatives of this regime — even signing condolence books at the Iranian embassy — while saying nothing about the mass killing of Iranian civilians.
So let’s be clear about what is being defended.
Iran is not just another authoritarian country. It is a system of religious apartheid where your life is dictated by what you believe, how you dress, and whether you fall in line. If you don’t, there are consequences. Women are watched and controlled. Religious minorities are pushed aside and persecuted. Even Muslims who don’t follow the regime’s version of Islam are punished — sometimes with prison, sometimes worse.
As South Africa prepares to mark Freedom Day, the contrast is impossible to ignore. Here, people will celebrate the right to vote, to speak openly, to live without fear of their own government. These are simple freedoms — but they are exactly what people in Iran are still fighting for, and in many cases, dying for.
So today, on Nowruz, we are not just celebrating a new year. We are praying for something far more basic – the rights that South Africans are able to live with every day.
We speak as a community shaped by exile.
Forty-seven years ago, when the Islamic regime came to power, millions of Iranians left. Not because we didn’t love our country — but because we wanted something better for our children. We started again. New languages, new jobs, new lives. We built something out of nothing.
But we never left Iran behind. We carried it with us.
And we lived that tension – as it has been so powerfully said — “too foreign for home, too foreign for here. Never enough for both.”
We made peace with the idea that Iran was no longer free, but that at least we were.
But even that sense of safety is starting to slip.
We place on record that members of the Iranian community in South Africa have been threatened for speaking out. We have received direct calls meant to intimidate and silence us. There have been efforts to contact journalists to claim we are not Iranian – to strip us of our identity and discredit what we are saying.
This is not random. It is organised. It is deliberate.
We draw attention to communication linked to Iran’s embassy in South Africa, including statements attributed to Mr Dehghan, referring to instructions from the Prosecutor’s Office for embassies to identify Iranians abroad who are considered “hostile” — simply for speaking out or expressing support for the wrong side.
Names are to be collected. Evidence compiled. Cases pursued.
The consequences are severe — asset confiscation, loss of inheritance, punishment that reaches not just individuals, but their families.
So understand what this means. If you speak freely here, your family can pay the price there. This is not something happening far away. This is reaching into our lives, here in South Africa.
The regime did not stay in Iran. It followed us. At the same time, we are watching something deeply unsettling unfold. The same regime we fled is no longer confined to Iran. We are seeing its presence – its influence, its relationships – take shape in political and institutional spaces far beyond its borders, including here in South Africa. It is able to operate, to build partnerships, to be welcomed — while the very people it rules over are denied even the right to speak.
That is hard for us to watch. Because we know exactly what it means.
We did not leave Iran, rebuild our lives, and raise our children here, only to see the same forces begin to take root in the place we now call home.
We are speaking out because this is not theoretical for us.
We have lived it.
We know how this story goes.
And we are not going to stay quiet.
As the United States and Israel continue their operation, we want to be clear about one thing: this is not a war against the Iranian people. It is a confrontation with a regime that has held our country hostage for nearly fifty years.
On this Nowruz, we are not just marking the start of a new year. We are holding onto a hope that has not gone away. For a free Iran. For dignity for its people. And for a South Africa that chooses to stand on the side of freedom — not repression.
May the Iranian people be heard.
May freedom not depend on where you live.
May justice come.
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