Listen: Rahz, Ahmon and former North Dakota National Guard Adjutant General Mike Haugen’s conversation with Scott Hennen on The Flag.
FARGO, N.D. – Iran natives Rahz and Ahmon, who used pseudonyms to protect their identities, said family members still in the Middle Eastern country have seen people shot by soldiers in the streets and will take part in a protest of the Iranian government this week in Fargo.
It’s scheduled for 2:00 PM on Saturday, February 14 at Broadway Square.
Exiled Iranian Prince Reza Pahlavi has designated Saturday as a global day of action and solidarity for Iran. Rahz and Ahmon said many Iranians support him as their leader and would rather see a constitutional democracy than as Islamic Republic.
Ahmon left Iran in 2020 and came to the United States in 2021.
Rahz came to the U.S. for graduate school. Women are only able to do that with permission from a male family member like their father or grandfather. Rahz said they wanted to experience the free world and to have a good life.
“This is something the Iranian people.. they don’t have this opportunity. They are begging for that for 47 years. Each time they come out, they want their voice heard, but they get slaughtered day-after-day,” Rahz said on “What’s On Your Mind?” on The Flag.
“Once their families found their beloved ones, they couldn’t just take the bodies with them. They had to pay for the bullets they used to kill that person,” Ahmon explained.
Protests started on December 28, 2025 in the capital city of Tehran when traders took to the streets in response to the Iranian currency, the rial, decreasing in value. Demonstrations spread and protestors called for an end to the country’s Islamic government. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency has reported 7,002 people have been killed in the protests.
Rahz and Ahmon have had difficulties reaching their families in Iran since the government shut off internet and landline phone access. Rahz was only able to contact his family after they changed their IP address and used a VPN.
Ahmon thanked President Donald Trump for supporting people taking to the streets in Iran.
“If Iran violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to their rescue. We are locked and loaded and ready to go,” Trump said in January.
He said former President Barack Obama should have done the same in 2009 during the Green Movement protests.
Iranians demanded the removal of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from office. Green was used as the color for Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign.
“A lot of the activists were being accused of being tools of the West and there was some thought that we were somehow gonna be undermining their street cred in Iran if I supported what they were doing,” Obama said. “And in retrospect, I think that was a mistake,” Obama said on the “Pod Save America” podcast in October 2022.
