Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial reporter


A woman stands on a rooftop listening to the sounds 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 pets who notice the sound very first and start to bark furiously. The noise of aircraft. Then the threatening percussion of surges. A ball of orange rising from an airstrike in a familiar neighbourhood.


The BBC has gotten video and interviews from Tehran which evoke a city of strained nerves, of consistent waiting on the next blast and relentless worry of the state security device.


not her real name - is a businesswoman in her thirties. She is now too terrified to go to work. "With the start of the drone attacks, no one attempts to go outside. If I open my door and step out, it resembles gambling with my life."


She lives alone but remains in continuous interaction with her buddies. "My pals and I message each other constantly asking where everybody is ... and even when there is no noise the silence itself is terrifying. I am doing whatever I can to survive and witness whatever lies ahead."


Like so numerous young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of change devastated in current months. Countless people were killed in a crackdown by program forces in January after extensive demonstrations demanding change.


"I can not even keep in mind how I utilized to live in the past without being advised of the enjoyed one I lost throughout the demonstrations," she states. "I fear tomorrow. I fear the person I will be tomorrow. Today, I survive in some way, but how will I get through tomorrow? That is the real concern. Will I even endure tomorrow?"


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


The official story is the just one permitted. State tv broadcasts footage of presentations and funerals. Interviews with pro-regime authorities and protestors offer duplicated denunciations of America and Israel. In federal government propaganda the Iranian individuals are extolled as ready to suffer martyrdom.


Independent journalists still attempt to collect testimony that uses a trustworthy alternative view, however they run the threat of arrest, torture and potentially worse. As one of them told me: "In wartime conditions you truly do not know what they are capable of doing."