Total Repression And Air Strikes Bring Unrelenting Dread For Iranians

Fergal KeaneSpecial correspondent


A lady bases on a rooftop listening to the noises of the city listed below. There is just the dull hum of traffic tonight. But she knows how easily that can alter. It is normally the dogs who observe the sound very first and start to bark furiously. The sound of aircraft. Then the threatening percussion of surges. A ball of orange increasing from an airstrike in a familiar area.


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


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, nobody dares to go outside. If I open my door and march, it resembles betting with my life."


She lives alone however remains in continuous interaction with her good 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 whatever I can to remain alive and witness whatever lies ahead."


Like so lots of young Iranians, Baran saw her hopes of modification devastated in current months. Thousands of people were eliminated in a crackdown by routine forces in January after prevalent presentations modification.


"I can not even keep in mind how I used to live in the past without being reminded of the enjoyed one I lost throughout the protests," she says. "I fear tomorrow. I fear the person I will be tomorrow. Today, I survive somehow, 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 difficult as the state's watchers are everywhere. Footage we acquired programs routine supporters driving through the city during the night, flags flying from their vehicles - a message to any who may be tempted to protest.


The official narrative is the just one allowed. State tv broadcasts video of demonstrations and funeral services. Interviews with pro-regime authorities and protestors use repeated denunciations of America and Israel. In government propaganda the Iranian people are extolled as going to suffer martyrdom.


Independent reporters still attempt to collect statement that provides a reputable alternative view, but they risk of arrest, torture and possibly even worse. As one of them informed me: "In wartime conditions you really don't know what they can doing."