10 days in Tehran

BY MOSES MATENGA

For 10 days, l found myself in the heart of Tehran surrounded by serenity and sometimes artificial intelligence aided conversations with strangers whose smiles and gazes were both welcoming and inquisitive.

As a media person, Tehran Times became my daily favourite and l couldn’t miss a copy at the hotel l was staying, the Espinas Palace.

Iranian malls, at least in Tehran, closes not before 11pm and there are always teeming with shoppers and diners.

It is a sober nation (no alcohol allowed) and you can imagine the serenity associated with minds and hearts clean from intoxication.

Not a single day in those 10 days did l witness anything amiss. No gunshots, no fights, nothing.

“Is it the Iran l always watch and read about in the media?” I wondered.

The Iranian Mall visit

In terse conversations with locals, rarely did a conversation end without reference to the Iranian Mall.

Follow up questions would centre around whether we were enjoying Iran but more common was “Have you been to the Iran Mall?”

Such questions prompted a visit to the Iranian Mall as it had proved to be a source of national pride to the Iranians.

The mall, it turned out, is the biggest mall in the world spanning over 1.95sqm. lt has a total floor area larger than 270 football fields. It sits near Chitgar Lake, at the western edge of Tehran, with direct highway and metro access. The complex includes 700+ stores, luxury hotels, a vast book garden, and a full-scale indoor ice rink, making it both the largest and most multifunctional retail complex on earth.

Beginning of protests and temporary panic

One day, December 30 to be precise, and after five days of enjoying the serenity, suddenly vehicular traffic grew and the taxi driver appeared restless and always checking his phone.

“There are protests here in Tehran,” the driver said. “At the bazaar you went yesterday, there are protesters there. Some roads have been closed down hence the traffic,” he said with eyes stuck on his phone.

The bazaar we had gone to is a hive of activity with sellers and buyers of different items including clothing and other accessories. It is considered one of the cheapest in Iran.

Based on the panicky taxi driver’s reaction, the Iran l had read mainly from the western media began to flash in my mind.

“Are we even safe here,” I asked myself.

Maybe, maybe not but I didn’t panic and a colleague of mine always say “if your heart doesn’t panic, fear not.”

One day, the colleague’s heart didn’t panic and she drove straight into trouble, but I digress.

Back to Tehran tales.

The Tehran Times protests story versus western media

We got to the hotel very late and waited with bated breath for the following day’s edition of Tehran Times to get the clearer picture of what was happening and indeed, the protests were covered and the story was a lead story.

(Pic of the headline)

Failure in June, rhetoric in November.

This is how Tehran Times of Wednesday December 31, 2025 introduced its protests story by Faramarz Kouhpayeh.

“Protests are a natural and fundamental part of any society whose citizens care about their future and believe they can influence it. They are not a sign of systematic failure but an indicator of civic health and the practice of free speech, assembly and association. For Western states, their media, and their politicians, all of this holds true – except when the protests occur in Iran.”

The reference to “failure in June” speaks to the 12-day war that saw missiles and all sorts of weapons flying from Israel to Iran and from Iran to Israel.

In times of crisis, the media suffers

I stayed in Tehran for more days to follow but never encountered any protest. On December 31, we even met up with fellow Zimbabweans for dinner that ushered us into the new year while singing a Shona song “Tawanirwa Nyasha” at a local restaurant with some locals joining in the fun. In my mind, the reports of protests were either fiction or nothing to worry about at all.

That is the feeling I flew with back home. Iran was at peace.

Having departed Tehran without witnessing any protests and eager to appreciate the real situation, the intention was to continue following from the Tehran Times online but unfortunately the site was down and it remained so for long.

Iranian authorities switched off the internet for days in what the western media said was a strategy to shut the world out of the atrocities being perpetrated against protesters.

The contacts I had made in Tehran could not be reached for an update. In times of crisis, the media is usually the first casualty and this was the case. I remained in the dark for days.

Western media covered the gap on happenings in Tehran and we were told over 30 000 people, according to The Guardian, had died, others disappeared and mass burials were taking place in Iran.

According to The Guardian, testimony from medics, morgue and graveyard staff reveals huge state effort to conceal systematic killing of protesters.

The Guardian adds that estimates of the number killed vary substantially, hampered by the internet shutdown.

However, the Iranian government acknowledged more than 3,000 dead, and the US-based organisation HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency), says it has verified more than 6,000 dead and has more than 17,000 more recorded deaths under investigation, giving a possible total of about 22,000. Other estimates from doctors based outside Iran range up to 33,000 or more.

So what’s the real figure? Followers are left poorer in terms of information as he propaganda war rages.

But who is telling the truth?

Killing with sanctions, lying with statistics

This week, the Tehran ran the story headlined “Killing with sanctions, lying with facts.”

The headline and by extension the story sought to expose the “lies” in western media on number of people who died during the protests

“The West exploited and derailed legitimate protests,” Tehran Times reported on Tuesday.

“The unrest in January started as protests over economic hardship-pain rooted largely in years of U.S. sanctions that have strangled trade, banking, and oil exports. Initially, these demonstrations were largely peaceful and actually led to significant economic reforms by the government,” the report read in part.

On the basis of the manner Iran authorities dealt with protests, there was a call for U.S. intervention to topple the regime led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

US President Donald Trump and Iranian authorities are warming up to talks and a peace deal.

We wait and see.

However, the fact remains that in the propaganda war, no one will really know what happened and how many people died.

The propaganda war rages and so does speculation.