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About 26 years ago, Iran\u2019s biggest female pop star left her homeland<\/a> to tour internationally after years of being banned from publicly performing by the theocratic regime.<\/p>\n But Googoosh, now 75, refuses to be silenced. In the face of the Iranian government\u2019s deadly crackdown on protesters amid an internet blackout, the music icon on Tuesday became the latest prominent Iranian celebrity to call for widespread support of the country’s people.<\/p>\n On Instagram, where Googoosh has 6.8 million followers, the singer posted a copy of a letter<\/a> she wrote to President Donald Trump dated Jan. 12, in which she asked him to \u201cact on the promise\u201d he made to the Iranian people to help them.<\/p>\n \u201cToday, defenseless people inside Iran are crying out to you, asking for help as they face these ongoing crimes against humanity,\u201d she wrote, adding that they have \u201cendured poverty, blackouts, water shortages, censorship, imprisonment and mass emigration.\u201d <\/p>\n If they are silenced, we must speak<\/p>\n Actor Arian Moayed<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/div>\n It\u2019s a plea echoed by many in the worldwide Iranian diaspora who find themselves both heartbroken and cautiously hopeful about the unrest in Iran. In many cases, Iranians abroad hail from families who fled Iran in 1979 after Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was ousted and Ayatollah Khomeini took power. <\/p>\n Pop culture figures with Iranian roots have been among the most outspoken critics of the Islamic Republic, as they try to utilize their massive followings and notoriety to raise awareness about the violent crackdown against protesters and the country\u2019s complicated history.<\/p>\n \u201cRight now, nobody in Iran can see this video,\u201d \u201cSuccession\u201d cast member Arian Moayed said in a video posted to Instagram on Tuesday<\/a>. \u201cThey can\u2019t send a message, or make a call. Even landlines are silent … Iranian people are fighting for their lives and their future in the dark. If they are silenced, we must speak. Be their voice. Ask your representatives to act now.\u201d <\/p>\n For years<\/a>, many who stayed in the country have pushed for change amid political and economic turmoil. In 2022, the death of Mahsa Amini \u2014 a 22-year-old woman arrested by the morality police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly \u2014 triggered widespread protests led by women and young people across the country. The \u201cWomen, Life, Freedom\u201d movement, like in many past protests, led to brutal government retaliation, according to Human Rights Watch. <\/p>\n The 2009 presidential election also sparked massive protests, which have been referred to as the \u201cGreen Movement<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But this time the repercussions for people opposed to the regime \u2014 who have spent three weeks protesting in the streets across all of Iran \u2014 appear to be far more brutal. Human Rights Activists News Agency, a U.S.-based human rights group, estimates that Iranian authorities have killed at least 2,500 people<\/a> as of Tuesday. (The agency relies on supporters inside Iran for information it then compiles and releases to the public. Iranian authorities have not provided an official death toll.)<\/p>\n White House officials have said that Trump is considering a range<\/a> of options in Iran. In a message to protesters on Truth Social, Trump\u2019s social media platform, on Tuesday, the president wrote that \u201cHELP IS ON ITS WAY.\u201d He did not provide details about what that might entail.<\/p>\n While many within the Iranian diaspora remain divided over the future of the country \u2014 and whether foreign intervention is the best path toward Iranians\u2019 freedom \u2014 most appear to agree: The current government is not the answer. <\/p>\n \u201cThe majority of Iranians alive today have never known a secular Iran,\u201d actor and human rights activist Nazanin Boniadi wrote in an essay for The New Statesman.<\/a> \u201cThey did not grow up in a country where women chose their own attire freely, where tourists filled its streets, where the nation was integrated into the world rather than isolated from it\u2014and where an Iranian passport conferred dignity rather than stigma. That Iran has been systematically erased, replaced by an Islamic Republic of death and destruction.\u201d<\/p>\n On Sunday, as many Hollywood A-listers began rolling up to the Golden Globes in Beverly Hills, thousands of Iranians in Los Angeles rallied just a few miles away outside of the Federal Building in a demonstration supporting the Iranian people<\/a>. In the sea of protesters were some cast members from Bravo\u2019s \u201cThe Valley: Persian Style,\u201d which depicts the lives of Iranian Americans in L.A.<\/p>\n \u201cToday\u2019s protest was incredible!!\u201d wrote Reza Jackson<\/a>, a cast member from \u201cThe Valley,\u201d in a caption to a video <\/a>of the Jan. 11 protests. \u201cSO MANY ppl came out, from kids to seniors and even dogs. We are so strong when united like this with a single aim of kicking out the regime.\u201d<\/p>\n