Australia grants asylum to five players of Iran women’s football team

But trauma specialists say those reactions reflect something deeper: decades of repression that have fundamentally shaped how many Iranians perceive danger. For many inside the country, the regime itself—not the bombs—has long been the most immediate threat to their lives.

The discussion gained attention after a viral Instagram reel by Iranian-origin actor and producer Tara Grammy. In the video, Grammy recounts a conversation a friend in Iran said they had with their therapist—a moment that appeared to capture what many Iranians had already been expressing online.

According to Grammy, her friend admitted they found themselves celebrating the sound of bombs hitting Tehran—something that surprised even them. The therapist’s explanation, she said, was psychological.

“When your entire life you have lived under the constant threat of the Islamic Republic—arrests, prison, executions, morality police, surveillance, people disappearing after exercising their right to protest—your brain learns to fear the thing that actually controls your life,” Grammy said in the video.

“Psychologists call this threat normalization.”

The concept describes how people living under long-term repression can come to see the greatest danger not as an external threat such as war, but the authority that controls their daily lives.

To better understand the reaction, Iran International spoke with two therapists who work with Iranians affected by political repression and trauma.

Clinical psychotherapist Azadeh Afsahi, founder of Iran House and an NGO in contact with political prisoners inside Iran, said many reactions seen online cannot be understood without recognizing the depth of suffering many Iranians have endured.

“I think what we need to look at is the big picture: why is it that a nation is celebrating what the whole world fears—bombs?” Afsahi said.

“For them, the bomb can feel like a form of liberation, as sad as that sounds. For 47 years they have lived under oppression without meaningful help.”

Afsahi said many Iranians understand the risks and potential loss of life associated with conflict. But for some, the possibility that the Islamic Republic could finally fall outweighs those fears.

According to Afsahi, many messages she has received from inside Iran reflect a mix of fear, anxiety and renewed hope. After recent crackdowns and mass killings during protests, she said many Iranians had fallen into what she described as a “collective depression.”

“Right now, despite their houses being bombed and loved ones being killed, there is still an element of hope,” she said. “Because the pain is being seen internationally, and somebody is intervening.”

Another trauma counselor, Farnaz Farrokhi-Holmes, said decades of repression have left many Iranians living with complex trauma—a condition caused by prolonged exposure to violence and fear.

“When trauma happens repeatedly, the brain begins to normalize the threats around it,” she explained.

Over time, she said, the brain adapts to survive in an environment of constant danger.

“The bombs are no longer perceived as the primary threat. The imminent threat is the IRGC—its survival and its continued power.”

Farrokhi-Holmes said she is currently providing pro bono counseling to a young Iranian woman who survived the January 2026 protest crackdowns and later escaped the country after witnessing security forces shoot demonstrators.

The trauma many Iranians carry, she said, is difficult for outsiders to fully grasp. Unless someone has lived under a system where arrests, violence and executions can happen without warning, the psychological response may be hard to understand.

Both therapists emphasized that reactions inside Iran remain complex. Many people are afraid. Many are grieving. But some, they say, also feel something absent for years: hope.

As Afsahi put it, many Iranians are not celebrating war itself but the possibility that decades of repression could finally end.

“They’re not happy about the war,” she said. “They are happy about the possibility of liberation.”

The threat was issued in a statement by the Office of the Prosecutor General, which said such cooperation, if deemed harmful to national security, could bring confiscation of all assets and other legal penalties.

The statement cited Article 1 of a law passed in October that increased penalties for espionage and cooperation with Israel and other countries deemed hostile to Iran’s national security and interests.

Under that law, operational or intelligence activities carried out on behalf of Israel, the United States or other “hostile” governments or groups can lead to the confiscation of all assets and the death penalty, the statement said.

• 

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The warning came after some members of the Iranian diaspora seeking change in Tehran gathered in cities across Europe and the United States to celebrate the killing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in the US-Israeli war against Iran.

At the same time, newly created Telegram channels have published details about prominent Iranians abroad who criticized Iran’s clerical establishment and backed the US-Israeli airstrikes that began on February 28.

Between 5 million and 10 million Iranians are estimated to live abroad, mostly in the United States and Western Europe, according to Iranian official data and domestic media reports.

“UNICEF is deeply concerned about the deadly impact the ongoing military escalation in Iran is having on children,” the agency said in a statement. “Approximately 180 children have reportedly been killed and many more injured.”

The organization said 168 girls were killed when a strike hit the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab, in southern Iran, on Feb. 28 while classes were in session.

Reports indicated that most of those killed were between 7 and 12 years old.

UNICEF also said 12 other children were killed in separate incidents at schools across five locations in Iran and warned that at least 20 schools and 10 hospitals had reportedly been damaged.

Reuters reported Thursday evening that US ​military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the strike.

The report cited two officials who said the investigation was not completed and "new evidence could emerge that absolves the ‌U.S. of responsibility and points to another responsible party in the incident."

The New York Times also said on Thursday that it had verified video footage and satellite imagery showing the Minab school was struck during US-led attacks near an Iranian naval facility, making it one of the deadliest incidents of the campaign.

It said the building had long functioned as a clearly defined civilian school despite its proximity to a former military complex.

US officials have said the War Department is investigating reports of civilian casualties but have neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for the Minab strike.

Strikes began last week as US and Israeli forces targeted sites across Iran, with Tehran retaliating with missile and drone attacks across the region.

“These child casualties are a stark reminder of the brutality of war and violence on children, which impacts families and communities for generations,” UNICEF said, adding that schools and children are protected under international humanitarian law and must remain places of safety.

The situation triggered a wave of posts across social media platforms, particularly on X, many of them sarcastic, angry or openly celebratory.

One widely shared comment drew a comparison with the authorities’ treatment of families whose relatives were killed during protests.

More than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown on nationwide protests, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history, according to documents reviewed by Iran International.

“In the past two months a man named Ali Khamenei did not allow families of people killed on his orders to hold funerals,” one user wrote. “Now for five days the body of that same man has been kept in a refrigerator and they cannot even issue permission for his burial. What goes around comes around.”

Another post mocked the uncertainty surrounding funeral arrangements. “The funeral procession for Khamenei will be held online through the Shad platform,” a user wrote, referring sarcastically to the government-linked education app used by Iranian schools when classes move online during crises.

Some comments echoed remarks previously made by a state television host who had mocked the deaths of protesters.

Public anger erupted last month after a presenter on Ofogh TV, a channel run by the state broadcaster IRIB and affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, referred to reports that thousands killed during the January crackdown were transported in refrigerated trailers. The program made a multiple choice question about where to keep the bodies of protesters. The show aired a segment posing a multiple-choice question about where the bodies of protesters should be kept.

• 

  Mockery of protest victims on state TV sparks fury in Iran

“Which refrigerator do you think they are keeping Khamenei’s body in?” one user wrote, listing options such as “Netanyahu’s refrigerator,” “an ice-cream factory freezer,” and “the freezers of Antarctica.”

Others used darker language. “The stench of Khamenei’s corpse has spread across the Middle East and they still do not dare bury it,” one user wrote.

Another post said: “Six days have passed and the rotten body of Ali Khamenei is still lying on the ground.”

Some users circulated images of a dead rat with captions claiming sarcastically that the first photo of Khamenei’s body had finally been released.

• 

  Khamenei ‘rat’ taunt spills from social media onto Iran’s campuses

Revenge in digital form

Many posts framed the mockery as a form of symbolic revenge.

“Khamenei left a deep wound in people’s hearts and denied grieving families the right to mourn,” one user wrote. “His agents buried bodies secretly. Now after days his own body is still on the ground.”

Others referenced reports that some families had been asked to pay for the bullets used to kill their relatives in order to receive their bodies.

“I heard Khamenei’s body has started to rot with worms,” one user wrote. “If you don’t have money for bunker-buster bombs, at least bury him.”

Another post revived a Persian saying about burial rites. “They used to say a corpse never stays on the ground,” the user wrote. “Even if someone has no one, eventually the municipality will bury them. But six days have passed and the body of Ali Khamenei is still lying there.”

“Israel said to return the body of Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic must pay for the missiles it fired, or his family must admit he was part of a Mossad spy team,” one post read, referring sarcastically to reports that families were sometimes asked to sign papers declaring their children Basij members in order to receive their bodies and permission for burial ceremonies.

Others suggested that authorities might abandon plans for a burial altogether.

“It seems they have given up burying Khamenei,” one user wrote. “Maybe they are waiting for the US Navy to throw the carcass into the sea.”

“Khamenei’s body should be bombed again,” another post said. “I’m still not satisfied.”

That contrast, several Iran experts told Iran International, exposes a widening divide between Western progressive activism and the lived experience of many Iranians.

Analysts say the reaction among many Iranians is not about ideological loyalty but about seeing any weakening of the Islamic Republic as a rare opportunity to escape decades of repression.

“War is violent, it's terrible and it has started. The people of Iran didn't choose this war — the Islamic government, the Islamic Republic government, chose this war,” said Siavash Rokni, an Iran pop culture expert.

“Iranians will use any opportunity to bypass the Islamic Republic to assure the fall of the Islamic Republic and the institution of a democracy,” Rokni said.

Anti-war protests taking shape in Western capitals have often featured placards supporting the very regime responsible for killing scores of Iranians, with demonstrators holding images of the now-former Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei — the man ultimately responsible for the killings.

Rokni said one cannot claim to oppose war while supporting the regime responsible for such violence.

This week, clips of Iranians dancing to the Village People’s “Y.M.C.A.” in the exaggerated arm-pumping style popularized by Trump went viral following the confirmed death of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

The cultural irony is striking. “Y.M.C.A.” was released in late 1978 and was charting in early 1979 — the same period Iran’s Islamic Revolution culminated in the fall of the Shah and the rise of the Islamic Republic.

Now, decades later, the disco anthem has resurfaced as a soundtrack for some celebrating what they see as the potential unraveling of that same regime.

Celebrations were reported not only inside Iran but also in diaspora hubs including Los Angeles and London, underscoring that the reaction extended beyond Iran’s borders but largely among Iranians themselves.

Iran International has reviewed footage received directly from inside Iran in the hours following the strikes.

In one clip, explosions can be seen in the background with plumes of smoke rising over Tehran as an Iranian man says: “Thank you Mr. President, thank President Trump, we love you.”

In another video, a woman shouts “Trump!” followed by cheers, clapping and the sound of what appears to be a vuvuzela-style horn as a group of Iranians celebrate.

In a separate clip filmed inside Iran, a woman says in Farsi: “Bibi, we are happy, Netanyahu, Israel, Trump...death to Terrorist, thank you for helping us Hooray.”

Another video, recorded after the bombing of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s headquarters, shows a group of young people flashing peace signs as they welcome the joint US-Israel military strikes.

Khorso Isfahani, an Iran analyst with NUFDI, framed the reaction not as celebration of war itself but as the culmination of decades of struggle.

“Iranians have been on the front line of fighting against Islamist fascist occupation of Iran for the past five decades. We have sacrificed so many lives, but it has always been an uphill battle. Finally the moment has arrived and we are celebrating it.”

David Patrikarakos, a British journalist of part-Iranian origin, said many Western activists fail to grasp that context.

“A lot of people, generally not Iranian — generally unable to find Iran on the map — feel fit to pronounce upon this,” he said, describing much of the protest movement as “signaling your virtue” while “paying no attention to the suffering and the thoughts of people inside Iran.”

He added that for many Iranians, support for Trump or Netanyahu is not ideological devotion but circumstantial.

For those celebrating, analysts say, the moment is not about endorsing war itself but about the possibility that it may mark an inflection point in a decades-long fight for political change.