Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial correspondent


A woman bases on a roof listening to the noises of the city below. There is only the dull hum of traffic tonight. But she understands how easily that can change. It is generally the canines who notice the noise very first and start to bark intensely. The noise of airplane. Then the ominous percussion of surges. A ball of orange rising from an airstrike in a familiar area.


The BBC has gotten video footage and interviews from Tehran which stimulate a city of strained nerves, of continuous awaiting 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 scared to go to work. "With the start of the drone attacks, nobody attempts to go outside. If I open my door and step out, it is like betting with my life."


She lives alone but remains in continuous interaction with her buddies. "My friends and I message each other continuously 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."


Like so many young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of modification devastated in recent months. Countless individuals were killed in a crackdown by regime forces in January after extensive presentations requiring modification.


"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 individual I will be tomorrow. Today, I survive in some way, but how will I make it through tomorrow? That is the genuine concern. Will I even endure tomorrow?"


Now repression is total. Open dissent is impossible as the state's watchers are all over. Footage we got programs program advocates driving through the city in the evening, flags flying from their vehicles - a message to any who may be tempted to demonstration.


The main narrative is the just one enabled. State tv broadcasts footage of demonstrations and funeral services. Interviews with pro-regime authorities and protestors use repeated denunciations of America and Israel. In federal government propaganda the Iranian individuals are proclaimed as prepared to suffer martyrdom.


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