Mahdi Zareei, Iranian assistant professor at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Guadalajara, Mexico, published a video on Instagram where he explained the similarities between the dictatorships of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua.
Building on data from the report Freedom in the World by Freedom House, Zareei asked, "What do Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, and even Nicaragua have in common?". The scholar, who has built an audience on social media explaining the repression of the Tehran regime, answered his question in perfect Spanish and with emotive arguments.
"Every time I talk about the regime in Iran and publish a video, Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans come to tell me that they understand perfectly. And yes, we understand each other. Not because our countries are identical, but because those who have lived under a dictatorship recognize the pattern in seconds," Zareei stated in the video.
According to the researcher, the key to understanding the common identity among such different peoples lies in the fact that the control mechanism is always the same, regardless of the country.
The dictatorship changes the flag, changes the discourse, but does not change the method. First, it steals the truth with propaganda, censorship, and lies. Then it tightens the grip on daily life. It controls what you can say, what you can see, what you must keep silent about," he described.
The professor supported his argument with figures from the aforementioned report, which confirms the twentieth consecutive year of global decline in freedoms. According to the document, Cuba scores nine points out of 100, Venezuela 13, Nicaragua 14, and Iran 10, with all four countries classified as "not free."
"In Latin America and the Caribbean, the lowest scores are Nicaragua with 14, Venezuela with 13, and Cuba with 9. The three are categorized as not free. And if you include Iran in that same scale, Iran has a score of 10. In other words, Iran is practically at the very bottom of the table, alongside Cuba and Venezuela," Zareei pointed out in the video.
The academic also recounted a personal episode that illustrates the connection between these peoples. On January 3rd, when the news of the capture of Nicolás Maduro —detained by U.S. forces in Caracas during the so-called Operation Absolute Resolution— broke, Zareei was in a café in Iran. "Suddenly someone with their cellphone in hand stood up and shouted, Maduro is gone. And the whole place erupted in applause," he recalls.
For him, that spontaneous reaction had a clear explanation: "In Iran, that news did not feel distant; it felt like a sign. If a dictator can fall, then none are untouchable."
Zareei recounted that five days after that news, massive protests erupted throughout Iran, which the regime suppressed, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths.
The episode reinforces, according to the professor, why the experiences of Cubans, Venezuelans, Nicaraguans, and Iranians resonate so strongly with one another: "The dictatorship may change language, flag, discourse, but the cage looks too similar".
"We are brothers in the same struggle. And although today we recognize each other through the wound, the day will come when we will recognize each other for having survived it and for having regained our freedom," Zareei concluded, quoting the words of one of his followers in the comments.
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