Local Knoxville artist Meidi Karampour has witnessed terror firsthand.

While living in the southern port of Iranian city Bushehr, he ran an underground art school focused on giving students access to processes seen as indecent or blasphemous by the government, particularly the use of nude models.

Karampour’s school grew in popularity. As Iranians traveled to learn from his teaching, government scrutiny increased. In 2017, authorities found his parent’s address and sent six masked men to ransack their home and search for anything that could be used as evidence against him. Authorities arrested Karampour shortly after, at one point interrogating him for six hours. His trial — which lasted over a year — ended with a prison sentence and lashing.

Two years later, Meidi secured a fully paid graduate student and teacher’s assistant position at Missouri State University. He left Iran after battling bureaucracy for 18 months in order to secure a visa. Authorities denied his wife a visa, so Karampour had to make the hard decision to leave her behind.

“She got rejected for her visa because she was from Iran. … Because she was seen as an Iranian living under the Islamic regime, rather than the people, rather than the person,” Karampour said.

Karampour now resides in Knoxville. After his wife eventually obtained a visa, she enrolled in the University of Tennessee’s Master of Fine Arts program. He relocated his studio from Missouri to Knoxville where he has continued his work painting portraits in a style known as Contemporary Realism. Mostly centered around transferring the intricacies and beauty of the human body, Karampour is able to focus on and openly display the same type of art that he endured punishment for in Iran.

Karampour wants to break the idea of an Iranian people who are in lockstep with the ideology and actions of Iran’s regime. Instead, he wants people to be aware that the history of the Iranian people rivals that of Greece in its longevity and impact on the wider world. Karampour noted that many Iranians living outside of Iran are often in academic, medical or engineering fields, believing that an Iran free from theocratic rule would be immensely prosperous.

“You can just imagine how flourished this country could be, and how much dedication they can add to the world of knowledge and technology,” Karampour said.

His feelings are heightened in the wake of recent internal Iranian conflict.

Protests broke out across Iran in December. They began largely in response to economic issues — specifically the hyperinflation of the national currency — but the nature of the protestor’s concerns swiftly shifted toward wider anti-government sentiments, calling for an end to the theocratic rule of the Islamic Republic.

These are far from the first protests to occur in Iran since the 1979 Revolution that overthrew the ruling monarchy under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

“This isn’t the first time that we are taking it to the streets to dismantle the government. It’s been a battle going on for almost 50 years now, unfortunately,” said Karampour.

In January, the Iranian government cracked down on demonstrators with at least 5,000 confirmed dead and estimates of potentially more than 30,000 massacred on the streets.

As footage from those harrowing days and nights slowly trickles out of Iran and a lengthy internet blackout imposed by authorities comes to an end, the movement continues to gain significant political support and attention from Western countries like the United States. However, the broader public’s awareness of the reality on the ground has dwindled. That is why Karampour knew he had to speak out despite the dangers criticizing the regime can produce, even 7,000 miles from Tehran.

“They just don’t care. They’re pure evil. We have to, we have to make sure people know this,” Karampour said. “Since my adult life started as an Iranian, I knew I was going to be in danger for so many things I have been doing. That is what my responsibility as a world citizen is giving me, and I should be ready to face any danger.”

For Karampour and University of Tennessee anthropology professor Dr. Karim Alizadeh, the movement is of particular importance.

Alizadeh is also familiar with the authoritarian nature of the Iranian regime. Though he was born and raised in the capital of Iran, his family traces their roots to the mountainous northwestern province of Iranian Azerbaijan. The region is home to the country’s largest population of non-Persian ethnicities, including Alizadeh’s family.

This connection to an area of such rich culture and history led him to pursuing both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in archaeology from the University of Tehran, and a Ph.D. from Harvard in archaeological anthropology, a study much more developed in North America than Iran.

“In most universities in the United States and Canada, archaeology is housed within departments of anthropology. By contrast, in much of the rest of the world, archaeology is institutionally separate from anthropology and is typically situated within the humanities, closer to history,” Alizadeh said.

Through his studies, he has discovered just how impactful archaeology and history can be when it comes to constructing national narratives. Specifically, Alizadeh has realized how the official histories of Iran largely exclude and misrepresent the experiences of marginalized communities such as the Azerbaijani Turks, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis and Turkmen to the benefit of the Persian majority.

“Despite this diversity, the modern Iranian state — first under the Pahlavi monarchy and later under the Islamic Republic — has pursued a homogenizing national project centered on the Persian language and Shia Islam,” Alizadeh said.

Given the regional history of oppression under the Iranian government, the population of northwestern Iran became immediately involved in the most recent protests. The Azerbaijani population has taken a more conditional stance in the protests, demanding the inclusion of ethnic rights as part of the larger movement’s goals. In contrast, the neighboring Kurds have taken a more active and often militant role.

“Yet, both groups share a deep skepticism toward Persian-dominated political movements that fail to address ethnic inequality. … Iran’s democratization is fundamentally constrained by its longstanding failure to address ethnic inequality,” Alizadeh said.

Karampour firmly believes that the movement cannot succeed without external help. He hopes that through continual awareness being brought to the plight of Iran’s people, the regime will back down for fear of reprisal, and that President Trump will stick to his promise of aiding the protests.

“We Iranians don’t have guns, and if we take it to a street and we are slaughtered very easily, like a game, there’s almost no way we can overthrow this government, unless there’s … another country intervene,” Karampour said.

Recent intelligence obtained by the New York Times reports a belief that the Iranian regime is at its weakest since the overthrow of the Shah in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. In the past two weeks, there has been a surge of American and some British assets to the region, including an aircraft carrier strike group centered around the USS Abraham Lincoln.

Although it appears the American build-up of forces in the region indicates a potential strike, the future of both the anti-regime movement and Iran more broadly are still uncertain.

Alizadeh sees three potential outcomes to a hypothetical collapse of the Islamic Republic. Firstly, a federal democratic system that is largely supported by the minority ethnic groups.

“This is the most widely supported vision among ethnic activists. It would include mother tongue education, cultural and administrative autonomy, local control over resources, recognition of ethnic identities. This aligns with the Azerbaijani slogan ‘National Government,’” Alizadeh said.

A new centralized state that continues the Persian-centricity of the current government is the second possible outcome.

“For many minority communities, this is the most concerning trajectory. A post‑Islamic Republic government that retains a centralized, Persian‑centric model of governance would almost certainly exacerbate existing ethnic tensions,” Alizadeh said.

The third possibility is a volatile and likely violent fragmentation of Iran along ethnic lines.

“If the state collapses entirely, some Azerbaijani groups may push for independence, others may advocate unification with the Republic of Azerbaijan (or they often call it North Azerbaijan), and Kurdish regions may pursue autonomy or independence. Such outcomes would draw in regional powers — Turkey, Russia, Azerbaijan,” said Alizadeh.

The coming weeks, months and years will tell the fate of Iran’s people.

There is still hope for a bright future among people like Karampour and Alizadeh – hope for the ability to re-visit the country of their birth. They believe that growing global understanding of the issue is important and awareness should continue to be spread.

“I am hoping to see Iran as a free and secular country, in which people have the freedom of expression in art, literature, journalism and lifestyle. I also hope for a country that is economically thriving, and people can contribute their potentials in all the fields at their fullest to make Iran a country that makes its residences proud of living in,” Karampour said.