Protests in Iran: Doctors’ community helps from a distance | EUROtoday

As of: January 12, 2026 8:40 p.m

The regime in Iran is taking focused motion in opposition to demonstrators. Many injured individuals keep away from hospitals for worry of being arrested. A community of medical doctors of Iranian origin helps from a distance – for instance by way of video consultations from Essen.

By Isabel Schayani and Srdjan Govedarica, WDR

ENT physician Shabnam Fahimi-Weber is driving by means of Essen and retains her mobile phone. A message from Iran might arrive at any time. Her ideas are sometimes within the nation the place she grew up.

“This is a very turbulent phase, especially for us,” she says. You continuously comply with the information and on the identical time attempt to manage medical care. “One meeting every evening right now, every evening.” Fahimi-Weber is among the initiators of the ParsiMed community. Since the 2022 protests, the community has been organizing medical assist from Germany for injured individuals in Iran.

Fahimi-Weber and her colleagues are caring for the injured in Iran. Because the federal government is aware of precisely the place to search out protesters. Fahimi-Weber describes that individuals who have been shot or severely injured can’t go to clinics. There they’d be picked up by regime forces and disappeared into prisons.

Help by way of satellite tv for pc

The present protests started on the finish of December. As increasingly more individuals took to the streets, the regime reduce off entry to the web. Since final Thursday night, virtually the whole nation has been reduce off from the community.

An enormous drawback for the medical doctors who assist from Germany and who depend on functioning communication channels. “Our work has become extremely difficult and even more complicated than before,” says Fahimi-Weber.

In the primary two days of the web blocking, nearly no communication was potential. However, the community is now involved once more with some supporters in Iran who can talk by way of satellite tv for pc connections. Through them, medical doctors in Germany now obtain requests for assist from wounded individuals.

Treatment by way of video name

A younger protester contacts ParsiMed by way of video name. Fahimi-Weber experiences that he has a gunshot wound to his thigh. “He was brought straight home by his parents,” she says. After two days with out therapy, the wound grew to become severely infected.

And it’s exactly in such instances that the medical doctors from Germany assist. They appeared on the wound by way of video name and gave directions: Now open it, clear it, disinfect it and bandage it professionally. However, the medical doctors are hundreds of kilometers away and the precise therapy is carried out by the injured particular person’s sister, herself a laywoman.

At least 500 useless

Such distant therapies are a part of on a regular basis life within the community. The medical doctors supply on-line consultations, give specialist assessments and assist manage treatment. A couple of days in the past, Fahimi-Weber additionally obtained an X-ray of a 17-year-old with a damaged nostril. His household additionally would not dare go to the hospital.

Official figures on the victims of the wave of protests which have lasted greater than two weeks aren’t out there. However, the human rights group HRANA assumes not less than 500 deaths. The precise quantity is prone to be considerably increased, as activists have up to now solely recorded instances which were recognized and reported.

Eyewitnesses reported to the ARD of an especially brutal method by forces loyal to the regime, who shoot into the group with stay ammunition and with deadly intent – particularly on the heads. This can also be proven by movies which are made public regardless of the web being blocked.

Doctors in Iran are afraid

ParsiMed additionally maintains contact with medical doctors in Iran who’re recognized to be keen to deal with the injured regardless of nice private threat. Pharmacist Malahat Daneshvaran from Essen-Haarzopf seems to be on the 17-year-old’s x-ray along with physician Fahimi-Weber.

Daneshvaran describes how nice the worry is amongst medical employees in Iran. “The doctors are afraid, they don’t dare,” she says. Injured individuals are particularly sought out within the hospitals and brought away. Anyone who helps places themselves in peril.

As she says goodbye, Fahimi-Weber says she hopes there will probably be as few accidents as potential within the coming days, however she expects the other. Iran is presently working out of blood reserves, experiences the Essen physician, and folks have already died due to it. The regime ignores this, which is why it’s now necessary that as many individuals as potential in Iran donate blood.