Don't forget Erfan Soltani and the Iranian people. History will judge those who look away

But, as an Iranian woman I refuse to reduce him to another statistic in the terrorist regime’s long list of casualties. His execution is the symptom of a regime losing control and choosing terror over and over again.

For months, the world was told that Iran’s unrest was contained. That fiction is collapsing. The nightmares of the regime are exposed. Despite the brutal repression, millions take to the street to protest.

Shocking reports are now emerging that the massacres carried out by the Islamic Republic have been far larger than initially admitted, with thousands killed across cities and provinces.  And yet, despite the killings, the protests have not stopped. They have spread. They have deepened. Young people, workers, women, families, and entire neighbourhoods continue to march knowing that arrest may mean disappearance and that dissent may end in the gallows.

What is also becoming clear is that the regime’s machinery of repression is no longer solid. Reports from inside the country point to fractures within the army and police, with growing numbers refusing to carry out orders to fire on civilians. This is the most dangerous moment for any dictatorship when it can no longer rely on its own for silence.

Iranians are not asking for sympathy. They are asking for help. They are unarmed, facing a state that deploys executioners, snipers, mercenaries and militias against its own people. They are doing what every democracy claims to admire which is standing up for freedom at enormous personal risk.

There is a widespread belief that any Western intervention would itself be an act of terror. But intervention is already happening inside Iran. Iraqi militias and Hezbollah have crossed into the country to crush protesters, funded by Iran’s own resources.

All the brave Iranian protestors that I have been able to contact told me that President Trump's statement that help is on the way is welcome. Targeted military action aimed at removing this terrorist regime is an act of solidarity with the Iranian people. This would not just be an intervention; it will be liberation!

But one voice is not enough. I will shout myself hoarse asking for justice but mine and the scores of others’ need international voices to back us up. Other governments must move beyond statements of concern.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps must be formally proscribed as a terrorist organisation. Assets looted from Iran and hidden in Europe must be seized. Officials who order and carry out these crimes must be sanctioned, publicly named and treated as international pariahs. And Iranians must be given the tools to communicate with the outside world when the regime tries to shut them into darkness.

History will judge those who chose to look away.

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Haleh Blake is a British-Iranian activist and co-founder of United4Mahsa.

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