As I woke up in Tallinn today, the air felt lighter. It is a strange thing to say when the news is filled with the roar of ballistic missiles and the shadows of a widening war. But for those of us who carry Iran in our DNA, we recognize the frantic energy of the current moment. A nation united against tyranny, with victory being closer than ever before.

I moved to Estonia five years ago. I chose this land partly because Estonians understand what it means to live under ideological oppression. They don't take their independence for granted; they've won it with blood and sweat and protect it with a free press and strong commitment to democracy. In the collective memory of the Soviet era here, I found a mirror for my own struggle.

In Iran, the oppression wasn't always a grand explosion; it was a thousand daily humiliations designed to remind you that you were owned. It was the absurdity of university officials harassing me for the "crime" of sitting on the grass with a female friend. It was the indignity of ducking into a deserted alleyway during Ramadan just to eat a piece of bread, hiding like a criminal from a regime that polices the body as strictly as it polices the soul.

These weren't just "rules" — they were the building blocks of a gender and religious apartheid, a system that felt most powerful when it was making our mothers, sisters and friends feel helpless in the face of raw, state-sponsored violence. Human dignity has no place in this unholy matrimony of communism, corruption and Islam. I remember being a child and seeing the news; a new missile had been unveiled. They had painted a sentence in Hebrew on its side, declaring that Israel will disappear from the face of the earth. Even then, I wondered: Why? Why is this the priority of a government? As I grew older, the answer became clear. This is not a government. It is a terrorist cult that has hijacked a nation. It is, as Donald Trump correctly noted, an anti-civilizational force. They don't care about Iranians and they certainly don't care about Palestinians. Their only export is havoc. Their only purpose is destruction.

Now, from my "second home" in Estonia, I work on digital democracy projects and organize protests, trying to bridge the gap between the freedom I enjoy here and the freedom I know is coming for Iran. I see Estonia as a blueprint: a nation that uses technology and transparency to wash away the grime of occupation. The regime is still firing its missiles — at Israel, at ships, at its neighbors. But these are the spasms of a dying beast. The air feels lighter today because, for the first time in a long time, the end feels closer than the beginning. Khamenei's death doesn't mean freedom is here for Iranians, not yet at least. But after killing tens of thousands of my unarmed compatriots, I can't help but feel a tiny bit of justice is being served.

We have a difficult road ahead, but the vision of a functioning, secular and democratic Iran is no longer a dream. It is a project under construction. Iranians need all the help they can, so they can become a free nation, contributing positively to the world. I yearn for the day I can go back to my first home. Until then, I breathe the free air of the Baltics and prepare for the dawn.

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