Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial reporter


A female stands on a roof listening to the noises of the city listed below. There is just the dull hum of traffic tonight. But she knows how quickly that can change. It is normally the pet dogs who discover the sound first and start to bark intensely. The noise of airplane. Then the ominous percussion of explosions. A ball of orange rising from an airstrike in a familiar area.


The BBC has acquired video footage and interviews from Tehran which stimulate a city of strained nerves, of continuous waiting on the next blast and ruthless fear of the state security device.


Baran - not her real name - is a businesswoman in her thirties. She is now too frightened 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 is like betting with my life."


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


Thus many young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of change ravaged in current months. Countless individuals were eliminated in a crackdown by routine forces in January after prevalent presentations requiring modification.


"I can not even remember how I used to live in the past without being reminded of the loved one I lost throughout the demonstrations," she states. "I fear tomorrow. I fear the individual I will be tomorrow. Today, I survive in some way, however how will I get through tomorrow? That is the genuine question. Will I even live through tomorrow?"


Now repression is total. Open dissent is impossible as the state's watchers are everywhere. Footage we acquired shows program supporters driving through the city during the night, flags flying from their automobiles - a message to any who might be lured to protest.


The main story is the only one enabled. State television broadcasts video footage of and funerals. Interviews with pro-regime officials and protestors use repeated denunciations of America and Israel. In federal government propaganda the Iranian individuals are proclaimed as going to suffer martyrdom.


Independent journalists still try to gather testament that offers a credible alternative view, but they run the threat of arrest, abuse and potentially worse. As one of them told me: "In wartime conditions you truly don't know what they are capable of doing."