SAN DIEGO (KGTV) -- Members of San Diego's Iranian community are calling the ongoing crackdown in their native country a massacre, organizing demonstrations to amplify the voices of protesters thousands of miles away.
Kamran Amintaheri, an Iranian American living in San Diego, described the devastating reality in his homeland as a massacre.
"Imagine one day you wake up, you want to go to work, but you realize your people have been killed and they are killing them with machine guns. There is no internet. Everything is being cracked down on," Amintaheri said.
For weeks, this has been Amintaheri's daily reality as he watches events unfold in Iran from afar.
"Our families are there. That's our home. As the French foreign minister said, they have never seen something like this in modern history,"Amintaheri said.
Refusing to feel helpless, Amintaheri and San Diego's Iranian community have organized demonstrations at the corner of Genesee and Balboa in Clairemont. Last Saturday, Amintaheri said approximately 2,000 people gathered to show support for protesters in Iran.
The demonstrations respond to the current uprising in Tehran, which follows a pattern of protests that have occurred since the late 1990s under Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's more than three-decade rule.
However, Amintaheri believes this uprising differs from previous protests.
"The 20-year-olds, they're not afraid to die for their country. For freedom," Amintaheri said.
Amintaheri said family members back home have shared on social media that Iran's economic collapse sparked the current uprising. Despite the regime's attempts to cut internet access, he says information continues to emerge.
"We have a water shortage in major cities. 70% of the currency was devalued in a couple of months, so people know there's no life and there's not going to be any life in the next 5-10 years,"Amintaheri said.
On Wednesday, 26-year-old protester Efran Soltani was scheduled to be executed. President Trump announced Wednesday afternoon that he received confirmation that all protester executions were halted.
According to ABC News, more than 2,500 people have died during nationwide protests in Iran.
Amintaheri says Iranian news outlets have reported even higher numbers.
"You cannot believe it with your eyes,"Amintaheri said.
The San Diego Iranian community plans to hold another demonstration on Saturday, January 17th from 2-4 p.m. at the same Clairemont location; the intersection at Balboa and Genesee Ave.
Speaking in Farsi, Amintaheri emphasized a message of unity: “We have to be together. It's been so long, but these are the last moments that Ali Khamenei will be gone and Shah Reza Pahlavi will come back.”