Calgarians fear for safety of family and friends in Iran amid deadly protests

As the death toll rises, Iranian-Calgarians fear for the safety of their loved ones back in Iran and hope to receive support from the U.S. and its allies.

Many Calgarians with ties to Iran are feeling fearful for their loved ones as anti-regime protests continue, resulting in deaths among protestors.

Calgarian Amir Salami and his family came to Alberta from Iran in 2004.

He says trying to connect with loved ones in the country has been difficult.

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“Essentially, for the last four or five days, we’ve had no communication with families, no ability to see what the actual events are transpiring on the streets,” he said.

Salami says the protests are in the wake of economic collapse, repression and long-standing grievances with the Iranian regime. He says that Iranians are openly expressing support for Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi (Reza Shah II) as a unifying national figure and an alternative to the current regime.

“Any time that there is revolt, anytime people are standing up for basic human rights, they’re being met with bullets and with, essentially,” said Salami.

“The stress is an all-time high. We can’t maintain any sort of communication, and it’s stressful because the videos that are coming out, they’re showing regular people who are on their way to their houses or back maybe [from completing] just a day-to-day task and they’re being shot at.”

As of Monday, more than 550 people have been confirmed dead, another 10,000 are detained.

There is a communications blackout in the country, with internet and telephone lines shut off, and the threat of the U.S. somehow getting involved, making the situation unpredictable.

One expert who spoke to CTV News Channel on Monday said the current protests challenging the country’s theocracy are different than others that have taken place over the years.

Kaveh Shahrooz, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and former senior policy adviser on human rights to Global Affairs Canada, says that while the demand of regime change is one that we’ve heard before, what makes these fundamentally different than earlier protests or revolutionary movements in Iran is that the geopolitical situation is different.

“Iran in 2026 is considerably weaker than it has been in the past,” he said. “It’s militarily weaker. It was embarrassed during the 12-day war with Israel when Israel dominated Iran’s skies and killed a number of revolutionary guard commanders.”

Shahrooz said Iran’s economy is also in a worse position and that the country’s supreme leader is older and more isolated.

While U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to intervene, it’s not clear what that would looks like.

“We’re looking at it very seriously,” said Trump on Sunday. “The military’s looking at it and we’re looking at some very strong options.”

Calgary-born Armin Zarringhalam has family in Iran.

He attended a protest with several hundred people on Sunday at Calgary City Hall.

He says he wants all their voices to be heard around the world.

“As much as these people are upset right now, they have a fiery passion and that fiery passion is the ruling that we are hopeful for a regime change,” he said.

With files from CTV News Toronto