Golriz Ghahraman: It’s time for another Iranian revolution
Friday, 27 June 2025
It’s been more than a year since Golriz Ghahraman quit Parliament amid a storm of shoplifting allegations which she’s since been convicted for. But the Iranian refugee is still passionate about her homeland which she fled at the age of nine. She believes another revolution driven from within is the only way to topple the current theocratic regime, not interference from the West. She sits down with Explainer Editor Lloyd Burr.
Golriz Ghahraman is wearing what looks like a golden cat necklace, but I’m soon told that it’s actually the outline of Iran.
“Lots of people think Iran looks like a sitting cat though. And it’s apt because it’s where cats originated from,” the former Green MP tells me as she sits down for our interview.
It’s the first time I’ve seen Golriz Ghahraman since December 2023, just a month before her world turned upside down when a series of CCTV images surfaced showing her shoplifting at various clothing outlets.
Ghahraman has since been to court and been prosecuted for the crimes. She’s done a tell-all with TVNZ about the dark, self-loathing place she was in which drove her to self-sabotage.
While she says much of her trauma can be attributed to the constant abuse, threats, and hate she experienced in her six years as an MP, her mental health professionals have also linked it back to her childhood which is rooted in post-revolution Iran which saw her family flee in 1991. She was nine.
Given the current situation in the Middle East with Israel and Iran at loggerheads - albeit in a ceasefire for the moment - Stuff invited Ghahraman for an interview about the conflict, the impact on Iranians, and how it can be solved.
How Iran got to where it is now
In short, in 1953, the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran Mohammad Mosaddegh was overthrown in a coup supported by the UK and US, mainly because of oil.
The monarch Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was installed as leader and he reigned until the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which saw him flee to Egypt with his family.
“Iranians wanted to take back the oil resource, it was about equality, it was socialist students who got together to go: ‘We deserve better than this monarchy’. And they won,” Ghahraman says.
“But then their revolution was hijacked by Islamists, and we ended up with this regime”.
That regime saw the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran - a theocracy based around a Grand Ayatollah or supreme leader. It is currently Sayyid Ali Hosseini Khamenei.
The regime enforces Islamic laws with strict dress codes, relationship rules, alcohol bans, and restrictions on most Western goods and services.
What’s life like in Iran under the current regime?
Ghahraman still has family in Iran and stays in touch with them.
“This is a regime that's ready for long wars,” she says. “It's not a war-mongering regime. It hasn't started any wars, but as the only Shia state with beef with the US, it has always made it really known that if you get into a war with this regime, it will go on and on.”
It has multiple layers of military, is highly armed, and doesn’t care about its people, she adds.
“This generation of Iranians - who have never seen freedom - have organised so powerfully, have had their voices heard all around the world, have pushed back, and have put their lives on the line.”
She says the current situation makes it ripe for another revolution, but that’s unlikely to happen while foreign bombs fall. More on this further down.
Is regime change the only solution?
“Yes,” she says. “Iranians want proper democracy, proper representation, and Iranians in Iran need to decide who is the leader of their revolution”.
“Even the prison is peopled [sic] with extraordinary leaders. That's who is threatened now by Israeli and American bombs; our freedom fighters who will lead the revolution if we have a full war with America and Iran.
“But there's no way that I can see that ending in liberation and democracy”.
How should regime change happen, then?
In short, Ghahraman wants the West to force a regime change not by brute force, but by making it impossible for the current regime to exist, similar to current sanctions on Russia.
“If we look at the way that Western regimes have responded to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, we had targeted sanctions, we had the oligarchs named, we had actual bank accounts frozen, travel bans.
“We had proper statements that said we won't trade, we won't invest, we will divest. We've never, ever had that with Iran,” she says.
Why? Is it racism? “It’s because Russia attacked a European country”.
Brute force interference by the United States and its allies failed in all other examples in the Middle East, she says, listing Iraq and Afghanistan.
Have the recent bombings prompted Iranians to rally behind the regime?
In times of crisis, there’s a reaction called ‘rallying behind the flag’, whereby incumbents are backed by the population for reasons of stability.
This was seen with Jacinda Ardern in 2020 amidst Covid, Bob Parker in the 2010 Christchurch mayoral elections amidst the quakes, and arguably Australia’s recent federal elections amidst global trade instability prompted by Donald Trump.
Is this currently happening in Iran with the repressed population supporting the Grand Ayatollah?
“I wouldn’t call it rallying but what it has done is unite the people of Iran together. We've seen incredible stories come out of Iran where people are feeding each other, putting each other up, and putting up welcome signs for the Tehranians coming out into the provinces,” Ghahraman says.
There’s even love for the street cats (they’re not strays, I’m told, but loved members of society).
“There's a huge street cat community that everybody normally feeds, but because people have evacuated now, there's a need to organise to feed them. It's definitely brought Iranians together again.
“These are the people being bombed. Certainly people have not revolted but people under foreign bombs are not in a position to also lead a revolution against their regime,” she says.
Is Iran a victim, though?
“Iran was bombed unlawfully by Israel and aiding or supporting an unlawful use of force was the United States,” says Ghahraman.
“They were the victim in terms of the laws of aggression”.
What about Gaza?
Ghahraman hints that Israel’s attacks on Iran could be interpreted as a distraction to what it’s doing in Gaza, and the corruption allegations against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu.
“The most essential thing right now is that we still need all eyes on Gaza. That is a very desperate situation. There are hundreds of thousands of people missing and we have people approaching aid trucks being massacred.
“We still have babies and incubators being discovered, having died from siege and starvation. So we still really need people to continue to pressure for an end to that genocide,” she says.
Why should New Zealanders care?
While we are an isolated country, Ghahraman says it would means a lot to the people of Iran, Gaza, and Israel if we led the push of peace on a global stage.
“We are a Five Eyes nation. We're an English speaking part of the Commonwealth. It would have a great impact.
“New Zealanders would really relish the chance if our government were willing to show that we care for peace. I think the world needs to hear that right now from a country like New Zealand,” Ghahraman says.
Editor’s note: This article contains a quote referring to 'hundreds of thousands of people' being missing in Gaza. This figure was based on population estimates cited from sources including the Harvard Dataverse, Ben Gurion University, and IDF data. However, subsequent reporting has questioned the accuracy of these estimates.