Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial reporter


A lady 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 usually the dogs who discover the noise very first and start to bark intensely. The noise of airplane. Then the threatening percussion of explosions. A ball of orange increasing from an airstrike in a familiar neighbourhood.


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


Baran - not her real name - is a businesswoman in her thirties. She is now too afraid 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 gambling with my life."


She lives alone however remains in continuous interaction with her pals. "My pals 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."


Thus many young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of modification devastated in recent months. Thousands of individuals were eliminated in a crackdown by regime forces in January after prevalent presentations demanding modification.


"I can not even remember how I used to live in the past without being reminded of the liked one I lost throughout the demonstrations," she says. "I fear tomorrow. I fear the individual I will be tomorrow. Today, I survive somehow, but how will I get through tomorrow? That is the real concern. Will I even endure tomorrow?"


Now repression is overall. Open dissent is impossible as the state's watchers are all over. Footage we got shows program fans driving through the city during the night, flags flying from their cars - a message to any who might be tempted to demonstration.


The main story is the only one allowed. State tv broadcasts footage of presentations and funeral services. Interviews with pro-regime officials and protestors use duplicated denunciations of America and Israel. In government propaganda the Iranian people are proclaimed as ready to suffer martyrdom.


Independent reporters still try to collect testimony that offers a trustworthy alternative view, however they run the risk of arrest, torture and possibly even worse. As one of them informed me: "In wartime conditions you truly don't know what they are capable of doing."