Fear, arrests and intimidation shape daily life for Iranians amid war

As the rail gondola doors open up after a 24-hour trip up through and through the often mountainous terrain between Tehran and Van, a city in eastern Turkey, more than 250 Iranians begin filing out, carrying suitcases and, in some instances, rushing into the arms of waiting relatives. 

Others, seeing a small group of journalists gathered with cameras, turn away or cover their faces with scarves. 

"It's a normal thing for the people to be nervous," said a 36-year-old who was travelling to Europe, where he had just finished his engineering studies. 

"The government doesn't like people to talk about the situation."

Hundreds of people have been arrested, and the regime has launched a campaign to prosecute those accused of espionage or co-operating with anyone deemed part of Iran's opposition. 

"When you follow the state media, you get the feeling that Israel is being crushed, Trump is humiliated and so on," said a 27-year-old who had been living in Tehran but left during the war to stay with his father outside the capital.

"When you get the chance to see what Iran International [a London-based Persian-language news outlet] is saying, you feel the opposite," he wrote in a message over WhatsApp. 

Like many others, he struggled to communicate with anyone outside Iran because of widespread internet blackouts. But after buying what he described as a very expensive VPN, he was able to send messages. 

"I don't really know if it is going to end soon. I hope it will. The people are really concerned about their financial situation and whether they will be able to survive and for how long."

He wrote that the only people gathering in the streets these days are pro-government supporters, who sometimes chant and wave flags for hours each evening. 

One woman said Iran should not negotiate and needed to take revenge for the killing of the former supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and for the strike on the Minab school, which killed more than 160 people, most of them children. 

While Iranian state media is publishing footage of flag-waving rallies and what they say are missiles headed toward a U.S. Aircraft carrier, they are also airing videos showing the arrests of those accused of working against the regime.

In a video published on March 26 by Fars News Agency, an outlet with strong links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, a man is shown sitting with his hands behind his back as he tells interrogator who can’t be seen on camera, that he used the messaging app Telegram to send videos of several locations to Iran International.

The agent claimed his action led to the death of a father and son, and then the man is filmed agreeing with the authorities.

On March 7, Iran’s Intelligence Ministry reclassified the act of filming strike locations and such actions are now prosecuted as espionage.

There have been mass arrests which are often the result of late-night raids in major cities like Tehran and Shiraz.

On March 24, Iranian law enforcement confirmed that there had been 466 arrests in a single 24-hour window.

“The pattern is clear. (The state) aims to create fear and intimidation so that everyone in Iran fears being arrested and potentially accused of things like espionage, which could even lead to execution,” said Shilan Mirzaein, an independent Iranian human rights activist who is now based in Canada.

The UN's Special Rapporteur on human right in Iran concluded in a recently submitted report that the human rights situation in Iran has “been severely exacerbated by the U.S.-Israeli airstrikes” — adding the Iranian population is now caught between a large-scale military campaign and a government with a long record of gross human rights violations.

When U.S. President Donald Trump announced the start of the strikes on Iran, he told Iranians it was time to take back their country. While he initially said there should be regime change, that is no longer his message. Trump is now urging Tehran to "make a deal" or else the U.S. Will keep "blowing them away."

In an interview Tuesday, Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi had no intention, for now, of negotiating.  

Back at the train station, when asked about Trump and negotiations, the 36-year-old said people who are divided over Iran should come to the bargaining table. 

"I think this war will just continue for three or four weeks," he said. He added that it will either end by negotiations or Trump will follow through on one of his threats. 

He said the situation in Iran is getting worse every day and that the longer the war continues, the more pressure there will be on factories and the energy sector. 

He said the capital is already experiencing blackouts and that there are frequently long lines at gas stations. 

"For people like my parents, it's the second war that they are witnessing and they just want it to stop," he wrote. 

"Some others, they are counting days before the fall of the regime."

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