The last time Ash was in Iran, he was on the run.
He'd already had brushes with the authorities working as a photographer capturing the enormous protests that swept the country in 2019.
This time, he wasn't fleeing bullets or batons, but his own father, who had walked in on him having sex with his boyfriend, a crime punishable by death under the Iranian regime.
That set in motion a chain of events that found him, two years later, living in Istanbul, eking out a living with his camera, watching a new wave of protests engulf his country.
"I don't want to sit here and do nothing," he said one afternoon in a cafe in Istanbul's busy Sultanahmet district.
"That's why I want to go back. In 10 years, I don't want to regret this chance I had to be part of this revolution."
Across Iran, thousands of protesters in dozens of cities have massed on streets, chanting anti-government slogans in the most-significant unrest in the nation in years.
In Madrid, Vancouver, London, Athens and Buenos Aires, crowds of demonstrators — driven by women — have marched in solidarity, some setting alight images of Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader.
The protests began following the recent death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman from the north-western city of Saqez, who arrested by the country's so-called "morality police" for not meeting Iran's strict religious dress code.
Authorities claim the woman had a heart attack and collapsed at the station.
But witnesses suggest something far more sinister happened.
She appears to have died covered in bruises. She also suffered a catastrophic brain injury consistent with being beaten.
Iranian police have responded to the uprising with a violent crackdown, beating protesters with clubs, deploying tear gas and, in some cases, using live ammunition.
'This is different than before'
On social media, Ash — whose last name has not been included because of safety concerns — and a group of his Iranian friends have anxiously watched the trickle of news from back home.
All feel the same pull to return and join their friends in the protesters' ranks.
Next week, they will do just that.
The others in the group intend to book flights from Istanbul to Tehran.
However, to avoid attention from authorities, Ash is going solo, plotting a more treacherous route overland across Turkey's eastern border.
Their mission is singular: to help topple the regime.
Ash concedes that it may not happen this month, or next, or even next year.
However, he will make sure he is there when they succeed.
He and his friends won't have weapons to fight back nor armour to shield them, but Ash has been moved by the stream of videos online showing the thousands of everyday Iranians standing their ground.
"It's given us the courage to fight this regime with our bare hands," he said.
"This is different than before. Because, most of the time, people have always feared the government. But, this time, there is no fear."
When he arrives in Tehran, Ash faces a set of immediate perils.
While there, he will have no family to accommodate him.
He has had no contact with them since his father made death threats against him two years ago.
He risks capture, torture, assault and even execution.
"If the authorities catch me, yeah, I'm probably going to be hanged," he said.
"But I don't care. I'm so tired of hiding and doing nothing. Like many other Iranians, I don't care about my life, I'm just thinking about the future. The next generation."
'Women saw themselves in Mahsa'
In Iran, Mahsa Amini's death and the sweep of unrest that it has triggered struck a chord with women and members of the Kurdish minority, who face the brunt of daily persecution by the Iranian state.
"Women saw themselves in Mahsa," said Azadeh Pourzand, who studies Iranian protest movements at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London.
"I think all of us from different generations have an experience of being struck by the morality police. It's intimidating, it's humiliating, it's scary."
But the rage felt by demonstrators has grown from a response to Ms Amini's treatment to a rage towards the political system more broadly, a system that firmly places women into a second category of citizen, in both public and private life.
Although there is no central leader of the uprising, protesters have unified to tear off their hijabs, slash their hair and block traffic: shows of open defiance that have instantly resonated with other Iranians.
"These protests and their demands are not only about women's rights, they are actually very bluntly about regime change," Ms Pourzand said.
Ash, the Iranian activist in Istanbul, agrees.
He is a victim of the same repressive system.
Upon their discovery of his sexuality, his parents gave him a choice: Leave the country where he had lived his whole life or admit himself to a psychiatric hospital.
"At first, [the protests were] just about misogyny," he said.
"But, now, it's about something more. We're fighting for our freedom."
'We are going to see a new chapter'
For Iranians living abroad, gaining a clear picture of what's happening inside their country has been a difficult task.
In a response reminiscent of 2019, the Iranian government has heavily censored communication over internet and mobile networks, meaning sending even a short video filmed on a phone can be near impossible.
Among other things, internet blackouts make it hard to know the exact number of civilian casualties.
State-run news organisations in Iran have referred to one figure, but NGOs monitoring the situation say the human toll could be magnitudes higher.
There have also been hundreds of arrests, including of human rights defenders, lawyers, activists and at least 18 journalists, according to the United Nations human rights office.
However, no amount of police repression will bring to a stop entirely the movement that these protests have built upon, Ms Pourzand said.
"Even if the protesters — because of the amount of violence imposed on them — end up having to go home, I think we are going to see a new chapter in the resistance."
"I think the crackdown will continue. But I also don't think this will end."
