The original text by Navid Kermani was published in the German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung. This translation has been authorised by him.

For days on end now my gaze has returned, with an almost compulsive insistence, to the small illuminated screen of my smartphone, lingering there in the faint, irrational hope that at last the second check mark might appear on WhatsApp – the discreet sign that my words have reached you, and that you, in turn, will soon reassure me that you are unharmed.

As was to be feared, once the internet was sealed off, the regime, after a fortnight of calculated restraint, has begun anew to crush in blood the uprising that has seized Iran. No longer was there talk merely of dozens of dead; over the weekend, suddenly and with chilling abruptness, the numbers swelled to two thousand and more.

Then, on Sunday, the images reached us: footage from the forensic institute in Kahrizak, south of Tehran, where relatives wander among hundreds of body bags scattered across the floor, weeping, lamenting, calling out names that receive no answer. The images are said to date from Friday – though it remains uncertain whose bodies they show. Experts who have examined these and...

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