Mission Network News – The official death toll from Iran’s protest crackdown is now over 7,000 people, according to new reports from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency. Witnesses inside the country suggest the real number could be significantly higher.
With executions, prison sentences, and businesses forcibly closed following the protests, the regime’s grip appears tighter than ever – even as nuclear talks and regional tensions dominate international headlines.
For Iranians at home and abroad, the loss is deeply personal.
Denise Godwin with International Media Ministries (IMM) says members of their Persian expatriate film crew are carrying the weight of it every day.
“The news I get directly from them and their outrage over the killings in Iran and the abuse and the persecution is just heartbreaking,” Godwin shares.
The Iranian expatriate community remains tightly connected to family and friends back home. Godwin says, “Many of them, of course, have fled because of either political persecution or religious persecution, and they can’t go back. They can’t check on their families other than through the media…. So it’s really an intense time for them as they hear of deaths, either of friends or family or acquaintances, or they just can’t communicate with someone back home.”
At the same time, IMM is preparing to release a Persian-language dramatization of Esther’s story from the Bible — a story about faith and courage in the face of a regime bent on destruction. The project was filmed with Iranian actors and crew last summer.
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