Madadi expressed relief over a relative’s survival, saying, “That relative is still alive, he [is] still alive. Bad injury.” Unfortunately, many others haven’t been so fortunate.

Sara Rafiee, a lawyer and advocate for Iranian human rights, finds herself in a distressing limbo regarding her own family. “I have not been able to contact them. I don’t even know if they [are] dead or alive. It’s the hardest thing not knowing,” she lamented.

Rafiee is acutely aware of the grim reality unfolding in the nation of her birth. She knows a massacre is taking place, yet she remains powerless to intervene.

In an effort to shed light on the situation, Rafiee shared a voice message from within Iran, offering a rare and poignant glimpse into the ongoing civil unrest.

Rafiee shared a voice message from inside Iran, capturing a rare account of the civil unrest.

“Donald Trump, he needs to step in, obviously,” Madadi said.

“So you lose hope, you panic, you cry.

“On the other you say, ‘well, we can get treatment. We are resilient. We will fight it. There is hope’.

“And you hope, and you move forward.”

“The mental health impact of this on our community is excruciating,” he said.

“It’s such a terrible, terrible sort of thing when, especially, when you can’t communicate to loved ones, and that is the experience of a lot of our community members.”

Razmara said this uprising felt different to previous modern protest movements in Iran, and he was hopeful it would lead to regime change.

“We say it with a great deal of reservation, but we think … it can’t get any worse,” he said.

“We just want rid of these people. They have no legitimacy in Iran.”

Razmara called on the Australian government to advocate for human rights in Iran and, in the short term, for the internet to be restored.

He also wanted targeted sanctions to be imposed and for resources to teach the Iranian community “how to engage with democracy and exercise democracy”, to increase social cohesion.