Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial correspondent


A woman stands on a rooftop listening to the noises of the city below. There is just the dull hum of traffic tonight. But she understands how easily that can alter. It is usually the canines who discover the noise very first and begin to bark furiously. The sound of aircraft. Then the ominous percussion of surges. A ball of orange increasing from an airstrike in a familiar neighbourhood.


The BBC has actually acquired footage and interviews from Tehran which evoke a city of strained nerves, of continuous awaiting the next blast and unrelenting fear of the state security apparatus.


Baran - not her genuine name - is a businesswoman in her thirties. She is now too scared to go to work. "With the start of the drone attacks, no one dares to go outside. If I open my door and march, it resembles betting with my life."


She lives alone however is in constant communication with her friends. "My good friends and I message each other continuously asking where everybody is ... and even when there is no sound the silence itself is scary. I am doing whatever I can to survive and witness whatever lies ahead."


Thus many young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of change devastated in recent months. Countless individuals were killed in a crackdown by regime forces in January after prevalent presentations demanding modification.


"I can not even keep in mind how I utilized to live in the past without being advised of the loved one I lost throughout the protests," she states. "I fear tomorrow. I fear the individual I will be tomorrow. Today, I make it through somehow, however how will I get through tomorrow? That is the real concern. Will I even live through tomorrow?"


Now repression is overall. Open dissent is difficult as the state's watchers are everywhere. Footage we got shows program fans driving through the city in the evening, flags flying from their vehicles - a message to any who might be lured to demonstration.


The official story is the only one enabled. State tv broadcasts footage of presentations and funeral services. Interviews with pro-regime authorities and protestors offer duplicated denunciations of and Israel. In government propaganda the Iranian individuals are extolled as happy to suffer martyrdom.


Independent journalists still attempt to collect statement that uses a reputable alternative view, but they run the threat of arrest, torture and potentially even worse. As one of them told me: "In wartime conditions you truly don't understand what they are capable of doing."