Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial correspondent


A female stands on a roof listening to the sounds of the city listed below. There is only the dull hum of traffic tonight. But she knows how easily that can alter. It is normally the pets who observe the noise very first and start to bark intensely. The noise of aircraft. Then the ominous percussion of surges. A ball of orange increasing from an airstrike in a familiar neighbourhood.


The BBC has obtained footage and interviews from Tehran which evoke a city of stretched nerves, of continuous awaiting the next blast and ruthless worry of the state security device.


Baran - not her real name - is a 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 step out, it resembles betting with my life."


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


Like so lots of young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of modification ravaged in current months. Countless people were killed in a crackdown by regime forces in January after prevalent presentations demanding change.


"I can not even remember how I utilized to live in the past without being advised of the liked one I lost throughout the demonstrations," she says. "I fear tomorrow. I fear the person I will be tomorrow. Today, I make it through somehow, but how will I get through tomorrow? That is the real concern. Will I even live through tomorrow?"


Now repression is total. Open dissent is difficult as the state's watchers are everywhere. Footage we got programs program advocates driving through the city during the night, flags flying from their vehicles - a message to any who may be tempted to protest.


The main story is the only one permitted. State tv broadcasts footage of demonstrations and funeral services. Interviews with pro-regime officials and protestors provide repeated denunciations of America and Israel. In federal government propaganda the Iranian individuals are extolled as ready to suffer martyrdom.


Independent journalists still attempt to gather testament that provides a reliable alternative view, however they run the danger of arrest, abuse and possibly worse. As one of them told me: "In wartime conditions you truly don't understand what they are capable of doing."