Iranian activist tells BBC how fear of war restarting intensifies trauma of repression
He stays at his home in Tehran these days and nights. To wait. For airplane sound. Bombs. Whether there is news from friends in custody or not. Şirin (not her real name) is constantly worried. He’s showing signs of post-traumatic stress disorder. His left hand no longer fully functions.
“Every time I hear a disturbing sound, my body reacts involuntarily. The psychological pressure on my brain numbed this part of my left hand. It doesn’t work. I still worry about the resumption of the war, and this is a very scary thing.”
The regime displays power in the streets; There are parades in which women drive jeeps equipped with heavy machine guns, while others use automatic rifles.
Iranian security services were closely monitoring the state-organized religious rally in Tehran [Getty Images]
The BBC uses trusted sources in Iran to speak to those whose voices have been silenced by the regime.
Şirin, a political activist living under severe repression, experiences a feeling of helplessness.
“Things [have] For example, we could not do anything about the execution of those arrested during the January uprising. There were executions, prisoners were hanged… We have lost the streets now.”
Heavily armed women were among those who took part in a pro-government march last month [BBC]
He listens to the sound of cars pulling up outside. Knocking on the door. The phone call that summoned him for questioning. Once they come for you, fear never goes away.
He was talking to his mother on the phone for the first time when the car pulled up next to him on the street. This was during a long period of the “Women, Life, Freedom” protest movement following the 2024 murder in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested by the Morality Police for allegedly not wearing her hijab properly.
A man and a young woman came out and stood in front of Shirin.
“Are you Miss…?” the man asked.
“I said ‘Yes’. I told my mom I would call her later and hung up.”
They were discussing finding food for their dinner.
Şirin, a political activist, understood what was happening. The couple he encountered were undercover police.
“I asked: ‘What do you want?’ They said, ‘You are under arrest’.”
A few minutes later he was in the car and the young woman challenged him for not wearing a headscarf. There was a brawl.
“He said, ‘Put on your headscarf.’ He tried to force me to wear a headscarf. I said, ‘You shouldn’t touch my headscarf.’ I pulled his hand down.”
After the death of Mahsa Amini in custody, the “Women, Life, Freedom” protest movement began in 2022 [Getty Images]
Şirin was interrogated but released after signing a statement agreeing to remain publicly silent for two months due to solitary confinement. Breaking this promise means going directly to jail. If Şirin were arrested today, it is unlikely that she would be given a choice.
According to Human Rights Watch (HRW), “detainees, many of whom should never have been detained, face human rights violations, serious injuries, and death.”
Activists estimate that more than 50,000 people have been arrested since the last anti-regime protests in January. Most of them are being held incommunicado. The repression has intensified since the war began in February. There are repeated and credible allegations of torture.
In a report published by HRW last month, senior Iranian police commander Ahmadreza Radan was quoted as warning: “We will consider anyone who takes to the streets at the will of the enemies as enemies, not as protesters or anything else.” [itself] and it will happen [thus] Let’s treat them the same way we treat the enemy.”
Anger over economic conditions led to anti-government protests in Iran in January [Getty Images]
Şirin lost her job due to her anti-regime stance. Some of his colleagues blamed him and other activists for Israel’s American attack on Iran. None of this diminished his opposition to the regime, but his feelings about the war did change.
“I was very happy when the regime’s military personnel were killed. But when civilians were killed, I was torn, especially when I saw that they had crashed into a sketchy newly built building on the side of the street and 25 people died there. A one-year-old child lost his mother. This touched me deeply.”
The combination of state repression and the US bombing campaign of Israel has further deepened Iran’s already deep mental health crisis.
The Iranian Red Crescent has reported that tens of thousands of calls have been made to its hotlines since the beginning of the conflict. The system, currently under-resourced, is struggling to cope with a range of psychological problems, with the World Health Organization reporting attacks on 18 medical facilities.
This psychiatric hospital in Tehran was damaged during strikes at the end of March [Anadolu via Getty Images]
Speaking to the BBC at a hospital in Tehran, a doctor described the pain of people suffering conflict-related trauma.
“‘How are you?’ When you ask, the patient starts crying. We also have a psychologist and he only comes once a week because he hasn’t signed a contract. For one population, it only comes one day a week. [in the area] Out of 26,000 people? “I never thought everything would slip away from us like this.”
Şirin is worried about the suspended prison sentence that the secret police can apply for at any time. “They can push it,” he says.
Like many activists the BBC has heard from in recent weeks, Şirin expects repression to intensify if the war ends with the regime remaining in place.
“It is clear that pressures and pressures on personal freedoms will increase… But it is possible to endure these difficulties so that Iran can survive. I said to my mother, ‘No problem, I would even accept prison, but let Iran survive.'”
