Iranians who fled the country told CBS News they fear the U.S. will leave a “really dangerous regime” in its place.

Erbil, Iraq – As hopes that a deal between the US and Iran will end the war, now in its 90th day, rise and fall, there is little indication of where the repressive regime that has ruled the country for nearly half a century is headed soon. As rights groups warn of a dramatic increase in killings, some Iranians fear that the Islamic Republic, rather than being overthrown, may become more brutal.

After participating in two anti-government protests, Karvan, 22, and his brother Kavian, two years younger, finally decided to leave Iran on May 13, after being in hiding for months. They left everything behind – family, friends and their university studies.

“Our lives were in danger. If we had stayed, we would have faced prison and execution,” Karvan told CBS News in northern Kurdistan, Iraq, where the brothers have taken refuge.

“During the war, the situation was chaotic, but after the establishment of the regime, the regime became more extreme towards the people,” added Kavian.

The young men, whose full names CBS News is not using to protect their families and their associates in Iran, said they are running in 2022 “Woman, Life, Freedom” exhibitions.. Those protests were initiated by the killing of Mahsa Amini in police custody.

Like the brothers, Amini was a member of Iran’s Kurdish minority and lived in the country’s western Kurdish region, where there has long been deep hostility and distrust of the country’s theocratic rulers.

Karvan and Kavian also took part in the mass protests that swept across Iran in January, before the regime was violently overthrown. President Trump said 32,000 people were killed in this incident, although that number has not been confirmed. Human rights organizations say tens of thousands have been arrested and dozens have been killed.

“We heard the tension, and we saw how people were arrested and injured. We saw how they demonstrated against the regime and we fought them again, so that their voice could be heard,” Karvan told CBS News. “It gave us a sense of purpose to participate in demonstrations and make our voices heard.”

“We saw how people shouted against the state and the government. We saw that they threw stones at the authorities and how the state used gas bombs to disperse them, many people were injured,” said Kavian.

President Trump announced a ceasefire with Iran on April 8, which, despite the recent exchange of fire, appears to remain in place as indirect talks between the two countries continue.

But the deal brought little relief to many Iranians.

“We felt that the regime has started to hunt people again,” said Karvan. “They were arresting people who attended the demonstrations, accusing them of being Israeli spies. They were arresting people just for taking pictures of bombed areas.”

The brothers say the situation in Kurdish areas is worse than in other parts of Iran. They said the economy is deteriorating, and there are government checkpoints in the cities where security forces check people’s IDs and phones, “looking for anything that could be tied to you.”

“Under such a brutal regime you could be arrested, tortured and killed just for speaking out,” Zhila Mostajer, an investigator for the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, told CBS News.

According to Hengaw, about 40,000 people were arrested during the protests at the beginning of the year, and although most of them have been released, many are still imprisoned. The organization says that 31 people arrested during the protests have been sentenced to death, while 15 have been killed.

“It was very difficult for us, but we chose to take the risk because we are safer here,” said Karvan about the brothers’ decision to leave their family in search of safety. “We were hoping that we wouldn’t be there to show the world what’s going on, so that the world would understand what’s going on inside Iran.”

These young men have no plan and no idea what their life will be like now, but they said they will not return to Iran while the Islamic Republic is still in power.

Karvan told CBS News that he hopes the world will see how the Iranian people are suffering and push for change. President Trump offered more than four months ago – not just a new deal on the Strait of Hormuz or Iran’s nuclear program.

“They always talk about how uranium is dangerous if it is in the hands of the state,” he said. “If you really knew how they treat their people, you wouldn’t let them enrich uranium, and you wouldn’t let this regime exist.”

“They are a really dangerous regime,” he added, urging people around the world to “look deeper,” because “if they do this to their own people, just think what they will do to the rest of the world.”