Crowds of thousands have marched across the country each night, chanting "death to the dictator", a reference to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and for the return of the Pahlavi dynasty, which ruled Iran before the 1979 revolution.
The Iranian government has responded with force.
United States-based human rights group HRANA said it had verified the deaths of 490 protesters and 48 security personnel, with more than 10,600 people arrested in two weeks of unrest.
An Iranian expat and doctorate student in Dunedin, who declined to be named, said the government blackout of communication meant he did not know how to reach family or friends.
"I can’t reach my family and my friends, I don’t know what is happening to them.
"There are only a few Starlink terminals in Iran and they sent ... just a few videos to Iran International and we’re following the news from that channel.
"That’s our only communication channel to Iran, we have no
idea what is really happening ..."
The expat said he lived through the last time a wide-scale communications blackout occurred in Iran.
"I actually saw it with my eyes, when they blocked the internet, what horrible things they do.
"They started massive killing[s] of people and now they’re doing the same thing."
The expat said he was worried that the Islamic Republic would move from shooting and imprisoning protesters to bombing them.
"The Islamic Republic has no moral boundaries and they would bomb Iranian protesters in the streets in their last hours.
"It needs military intervention.
"It has to be stopped, this slaughtering machine has to be stopped."
The expat said at this point, military intervention in Iran by the US was warranted.
"We know that military removal of regime is not ideal, but we have no other choice.
"All Iranians are calling out, we don’t know what to do, because it’s not an operation any more.
"It’s a war between a fully armed regime with its unarmed people."
