Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial reporter


A female bases on a roof listening to the noises of the city below. There is just the dull hum of traffic tonight. But she knows how quickly that can change. It is usually the dogs who notice the sound very first and begin to bark furiously. The noise of aircraft. Then the ominous percussion of explosions. A ball of orange rising from an airstrike in a familiar area.


The BBC has actually acquired video footage and interviews from Tehran which stimulate a city of stretched nerves, of consistent waiting for the next blast and relentless worry of the state security apparatus.


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 attempts to go outside. If I open my door and march, it resembles betting with my life."


She lives alone however is in consistent communication with her buddies. "My friends 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 lots of young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of modification devastated in current months. Countless people were killed in a crackdown by routine forces in January after extensive demonstrations demanding modification.


"I can not even keep in mind how I utilized to live in the past without being reminded of the enjoyed one I lost during the protests," she says. "I fear tomorrow. I fear the individual I will be tomorrow. Today, I make it through in some way, however how will I make it 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 everywhere. Footage we got shows regime fans driving through the city at night, flags flying from their vehicles - a message to any who may be lured to demonstration.


The official narrative is the just one allowed. State television broadcasts video footage of demonstrations and funerals. Interviews with pro-regime officials and protestors offer duplicated denunciations of America and Israel. In federal government propaganda the Iranian people are extolled as going to .


Independent journalists still try to collect testimony that offers a reliable alternative view, but they risk of arrest, torture and perhaps worse. As one of them told me: "In wartime conditions you really don't understand what they are capable of doing."