Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial correspondent


A woman stands on a roof 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 typically the pet dogs who see the noise first and start to bark furiously. The sound of aircraft. Then the ominous percussion of explosions. A ball of orange increasing from an airstrike in a familiar neighbourhood.


The BBC has actually obtained footage and interviews from Tehran which evoke a city of stretched nerves, of consistent awaiting the next blast and relentless fear of the state security apparatus.


Baran - not her genuine 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 dares to go outside. If I open my door and step out, it resembles betting with my life."


She lives alone but is in constant interaction with her pals. "My buddies and I message each other continuously asking where everyone is ... and even when there is no noise the silence itself is terrifying. I am doing whatever I can to remain alive and witness whatever lies ahead."


Like so many young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of change ravaged in months. Countless people were killed in a crackdown by program forces in January after prevalent presentations requiring change.


"I can not even keep in mind how I used 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, however how will I survive tomorrow? That is the real question. 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 regime advocates driving through the city at night, flags flying from their cars and trucks - a message to any who may be lured to demonstration.


The official narrative is the only one allowed. State tv broadcasts video of demonstrations and funerals. Interviews with pro-regime authorities and protestors offer repeated denunciations of America and Israel. In government propaganda the Iranian people are proclaimed as ready to suffer martyrdom.


Independent journalists still try to gather testimony that uses a reputable alternative view, however they risk of arrest, torture and perhaps worse. As one of them told me: "In wartime conditions you actually do not know what they are capable of doing."