Iranians fear regime will use conflict as pretext to roll back liberties

Iranians living in and near Tehran said the hours of darkness before Donald Trump's ceasefire took hold were the most terrifying of the war, as Israel intensified its bombardment.

- Shah Meer Baloch Deepa Parent Julian Borger

"We felt jets flying so low above our apartment that the windows shook. The bombing intensified to a level I've never experienced before. People ran into the streets, terrified and panicking," said Mariam, a 39-year-old from the village of Kordan, about 30 miles north-west of the capital. Like everyone in this article, she spoke under a pseudonym.

When residents ventured out in the streets after the sun rose yesterday, their first question was about what kind of country the bombers had left in their wake.

"There's a silence now, like a pause in breath before something worse," Mariam said. "We live in a nightmare that won't end. I'm scared. I don't know if the war will really end."

Most Iranians the Guardian talked to were pessimistic, fearing the regime would use the war as a pretext for rolling back some of the liberties carved out by the women-led resistance of the past few years.

"We had neutralised the ideology of these people. They were culturally and in everyday life bent to our will," said Shirin, a middle-aged Tehrani woman, referring to the fact that before the war the regime's enforcers had mostly given up making women wear the hijab who did not want to.