I have lived these fifty days with an open wound in my heart, standing shoulder to shoulder with volunteers from across the world, immersed in a project that took shape in the days after #Mahsa_Amini. In these forty-some days, there were moments when I came to the edge of collapse — so close to emptiness that even breathing felt difficult. A message would arrive from a mother whose teenager was killed, and her only request was: “Please publish my child’s photos and videos.” Or from a sister and brother who only wanted their detained loved one’s name to be recorded somewhere — so that the world would know he exists, that he was once free, that he lived, and that he is now in chains. This project moved forward with empty hands but full hearts — with the small amounts of time and money that volunteers carved out of their own lives and offered. With no backing from those who hold power or wealth, because it was never meant to be anyone’s platform or to elevate a name. It only sought to keep the truth uncovered. All of this pain did not break me. But seeing someone in a free country raise the image of a dead dictator like #Reza_Shah, and in the very air that grants him freedom of speech praise a dead tyrant — a tyrant who pushed Iran to the brink — that was when tears streamed down my face. Not from exhaustion, but from grief for a lost understanding. How small we have become, that from “#Woman_Life_Freedom” we have arrived at applauding decayed shadows. It feels as though we have lost our way, reaching back toward the past instead of fighting for freedom — a past that smells of chains. My heart is heavy — with sorrow, with grief, with the estrangement that has grown between us. #Adelaide — sunset, February 14, the year of blood; 2026. Translated into English from the original Persian text with AI

I have lived these fifty days with an open wound in my heart, standing shoulder to shoulder with volunteers from across the world, immersed in a project that took shape in the days after #Mahsa_Amini. In these forty-some days, there were moments when I came to the edge of collapse — so close to emptiness that even breathing felt difficult.
A message would arrive from a mother whose teenager was killed, and her only request was: “Please publish my child’s photos and videos.”
Or from a sister and brother who only wanted their detained loved one’s name to be recorded somewhere — so that the world would know he exists, that he was once free, that he lived, and that he is now in chains.
This project moved forward with empty hands but full hearts — with the small amounts of time and money that volunteers carved out of their own lives and offered.
With no backing from those who hold power or wealth, because it was never meant to be anyone’s platform or to elevate a name. It only sought to keep the truth uncovered.
All of this pain did not break me.
But seeing someone in a free country raise the image of a dead dictator like #Reza_Shah, and in the very air that grants him freedom of speech praise a dead tyrant — a tyrant who pushed Iran to the brink — that was when tears streamed down my face. Not from exhaustion, but from grief for a lost understanding.
How small we have become, that from “#Woman_Life_Freedom” we have arrived at applauding decayed shadows.
It feels as though we have lost our way, reaching back toward the past instead of fighting for freedom — a past that smells of chains.
My heart is heavy — with sorrow, with grief, with the estrangement that has grown between us.
#Adelaide — sunset, February 14, the year of blood; 2026.

Translated into English from the original Persian text with AI