Senator Cruz calls for US arming of Iranian protestors
"We should be arming the protesters in Iran. NOW," US Senator Ted Cruz wrote on X on Tuesday.
"For the Iranian people to overthrow the Ayatollah—a tyrant who routinely chants “death to America”—would make America much, much safer," the Texas Republican added.
Iranian families are turning funerals of youths killed in a deadly protest crackdown this month into celebrations of life, with dancing and wedding music aimed at defying their heartbreak and state repression.
The transformation of funerals into celebrations is a deliberate act of resistance, said Siavash Rokni, an expert on Iranian popular culture.
“If you, the Islamic regime, are telling me that I need to cry at the deathbed of my child, I will laugh just to defy your existence," Rokni told Iran International
Rokni said the funerals-turned-celebrations strike at one of the clerical establishment's defining pillars, overturning the Islamic Republic’s long-standing use of grief and martyrdom as a galvanizing force.
With the internet crackdown still in place, footage from these funerals is only now beginning to surface.
Traditionally in Iran, funerals are defined by grief: mournful music, Islamic sermons and Quranic recitations. But what is unfolding now looks completely different.
The songs being played are the kind usually reserved for weddings. People clap. They dance.
Across Iran, families are transforming burials into acts of resistance.
The relatives and close friends of slain protesters Mohammad-Hossein Jamshidi and Ali Faraji honored their memory with music and applause as they were laid to rest at Hesar Cemetery in Karaj, west of Tehran, according to a video obtained by Iran International.
In Lordegan, mourners chanted “Death to Khamenei” and “This is the final battle — Pahlavi will return” during the funeral of Ali Khaledi, with the pre-1979 Lion and Sun flag raised above the crowd.
Sina Haghshenas, a young florist from northern Iran, was also killed during the nationwide uprisings by the Islamic Republic. At his funeral, mourners celebrated his life even in death — refusing silence, and turning grief into a final act of pride and defiance.
It is not customary in Iran to hold funerals with dancing and clapping, but this has become a form of protest among families who have lost loved ones.
Holly Dagres, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute, said the scenes reflect a profound shift in Iranian society.
"For the Islamic Republic, that is a very worrying thing, that instead of these people mourning and being traumatized by what has happened, which they are to an extent, they're celebrating. And that means to me and signifies that this is a people that's no longer afraid of the Islamic Republic.”
By rejecting religious rituals and replacing them with wedding music, families are sending a clear and defiant message.
“Whether you're simply looking at the fact that Iranians are calling their martyrs, not martyrs but Javid Nam, or 'long-lived name,'" said Behnam Ben Taleblu, director of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Iran Program.
"There are many, many signs that the Iranian population, even as they grieve are trying to push past the discourse imposed on them by the Islamic Republic," he said.
More than 36,500 Iranians were killed by security forces during the January 8-9 crackdown on nationwide protests, according to documents reviewed by Iran International's Editorial Board, making it the deadliest two-day protest massacre in history.
For many Iranians, the celebrations are not a denial of loss but a declaration that fear has broken.
In the face of mass killings, families are reclaiming the meaning of death from a theocratic system that has long weaponized mourning and turned funerals into acts of national resistance, where even in grief, their message of defiance is clear.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy warned neighbors against allowing their territory to be used against Iran, saying the force has full control over the Strait of Hormuz, a key waterway through which about one-fifth of global oil trade passes.
Arabian Peninsula neighbors have long hosted US military bases widely seen as a bulwark against Iran in the waterway through which much the world's oil exports flow.
“We are receiving real-time intelligence from the air, the surface, and beneath the waters of the Strait of Hormuz, and we have full control over it,” Mohammad Akbarzadeh, political deputy of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Navy said on Tuesday.
“Regional security depends on the decisions of Iran,” he added. “If the airspace, land, or territorial waters of neighboring countries are used against Iran, they will be considered hostile."
US billionaire investor and political donor Bill Ackman called on President Donald Trump on Tuesday to topple Iran's leadership, after sharing a documentary by Iran International on the January 2026 massacre that shows graphic footage of protesters’ bodies inside Tehran’s Kahrizak morgue.
"Leaving these monsters in control ... remains an extremely serious persistent and long-term existential threat to the United States and to the world at large," Ackman wrote in a long post on X.
"President Trump, you are a man of your word. You drew a red line about the regime killing protesters," he added. "President Trump, it is time to finish the job.
Ackman urged Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to watch the Iran International documentary “Iran’s 2026 Massacre: Inside the Kahrizak Morgue.”
“The film bears witness to one of the greatest crimes against humanity in recent decades,” Ackman said.
Conservative TV host Mark Levin, who has repeatedly called for a US military attack to overthrow Iran's theocracy, reposted the message.
Republican Senator Ted Cruz also shared the documentary, saying it is worth watching.
According to a message shared with Iran International from an alleged eyewitness, security forces in Mashhad stopped an ambulance during the January 7–9 protests and entered the vehicle.
Iran International could not immediately corroborate the veracity of the account amid an internet shutdown authorities imposed on Jan. 8 lingers.
The source says they then fatally shot five wounded protesters inside, reportedly including a 15‑year‑old girl, and threatened the ambulance driver and doctor to stop treating injured demonstrators.
The same source also said several people who were previously arrested alive were returned to their families about a week later shot dead.
Iranian authorities are arresting medical professionals for treating injured anti-government protesters, according to London-based oncology professor Shahram Kurdasti from King's College.
Named detainees cited by the professor include urologist Alireza Rezaei in Tehran, healthcare employee Matin Moradian in Mashhad, neurosurgeon Saber Dehghan in Sirjan, general surgeon Farhad Naderi in Gorgan, and Ameneh Soleimani in Ardabil.
The crackdown aims to intimidate healthcare workers and conceal evidence of violence against demonstrators, Kurdasti told Iran International, adding that medical neutrality is a core ethical duty and treating the injured is not a crime.