00:00As the war rages on, Iranians find themselves at the mercy of an ongoing media blackout,
00:05making it notoriously difficult to get a real idea of how this war is impacting people in the country.
00:10As the country marks the start of Nowruz, the Persian New Year,
00:14we can talk to Bojou Daragahi, independent journalist and also author of the newsletter Badlands.
00:19Thank you very much for speaking to us here on Around the World today.
00:23Firstly, just how much contact can Iranians have right now with the outside world?
00:28And similarly, how much can we outside of Iran know about exactly what's happening inside?
00:35Well, I think it is possible to get some information out.
00:39The Iranian regime is distributing what they call these white SIM cards.
00:44That is SIM cards that bypass the restrictions on the Internet to regime loyalists,
00:52also people who are willing to pay a significant amount of money.
00:55Now, these SIM cards are also heavily monitored, so you have to be careful what you say and what you
01:01distribute through those.
01:03We are getting some footage.
01:05We are getting some scenes of normal life from credible people,
01:09from even some Instagram accounts that I follow are showing scenes of life.
01:15And it does seem like people are getting ready for this very important holiday, the most important on the Iranian
01:21calendar.
01:22They're shopping. They're getting food ready.
01:25They're in Tehran.
01:26Many people have left to go to the countryside, fearful of attacks like the one you're showing now,
01:32that have hit apartment blocks.
01:34You know, the U.S. and the Israelis, they boast about the precision strikes, and the strikes are precise.
01:44But oftentimes what happens is you'll have a regime figure living in an apartment building with 10 or 20 units,
01:52and the Israelis will hit that whole apartment building, essentially killing or hurting everyone inside.
01:58And so that is having a devastating effect and creating a lot of fear and depression.
02:02And so a lot of people are not being in the festive spirit as they normally would be.
02:09I'd like to talk a little more about this now weeks-long near-total media and Internet blackout.
02:15What are the practical but also the psychological impacts of such a sweeping move by the Iranian regime?
02:23Well, I mean, practically it means that it's hard to get information from the normal sources that we get information
02:30from.
02:31More, you know, psychologically, I think it makes people feel isolated.
02:37It makes people who are living inside the country unable to get in touch with each other even.
02:42You know, usually how people get in touch with each other in Iran is through apps like WhatsApp or Telegram
02:50or Instagram messaging.
02:52And because those apps are not widely available, it's hard for people to communicate with each other.
02:57I think people can use landlines, but as is the case around the world, people have stopped using landline so
03:05much in Iran.
03:07And also there's a fear that those calls are listened in on and recorded, and so there's a lot of
03:13fear there.
03:14And what about then resentment?
03:16How do people feel about the fact this Internet blackout seems to be never-ending?
03:25I think there is a lot of resentment.
03:27I think people are angry, but they're kind of used to it.
03:30They just had this experience in January with the total blackout during the protests.
03:37That went on for a couple weeks.
03:39But, you know, I think it makes people more depressed than anything.
03:43They don't feel like there's anything they can do about it.
03:45The sentiment that I hear a lot from the voices that do get outside is like, basically,
03:52they curse the regime for getting the people in the situation they're in.
03:55They curse the Americans and the Israelis for taking these airstrikes that forced them to be sympathetic a little bit
04:03to the regime.
04:04And they feel like they're in this kind of, like they're trapped.
04:08And they're kind of locked into this situation that they can't get out of and that it seems to be
04:14beyond politics.
04:16Now, you say that people in Iran feel trapped between these two sides,
04:21the regime on one side and Israel and the U.S. on the other.
04:23We have heard various attempts by U.S. President Donald Trump, also the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu,
04:29to frame this as a chance for the Iranian people to take control of their own country.
04:34How do Iranians feel about that liberation narrative?
04:39Well, I think there is a lot of different opinions on that.
04:43There are many people who would agree with the Trump-Netanyahu narrative.
04:49They feel that this is a chance for them to do something.
04:53Those people tend to not be, in general, people who have access to weaponry or organization that would be necessary
05:03for the kind of uprising that Netanyahu and Trump fantasize about.
05:08On the other hand, there's a good portion of the country, and I've met with these people.
05:14I've talked with them.
05:15They're very hardcore pro-regime.
05:17They tend to be concentrated in the poorer sections of the cities and in the countryside.
05:23But they are hardcore, and they do have access to weapons and organization.
05:28And those are the people who right now do have the tools of communication.
05:31So it's quite a lopsided battle.
05:35And then there's a lot of people in the middle who are just trying to survive.
05:39And I think that that's what, in general, if you can imagine if something like this was happening in a
05:44Western capital,
05:45I don't think you would be organizing or getting ready to revolt if you are under a situation like this.
05:52I think you would be organizing a go-bag and a plan to protect your property and your family rather
06:00than stage a revolution.
06:03Now, we know that already by January, when we saw those mass protests across Iran that were crushed by the
06:10regime,
06:10we saw that people were experiencing very difficult times, economically speaking.
06:15Do we have any idea about how this conflict is impacting the spending power of normal Iranians?
06:23I think it's tough. It's a very hard situation.
06:26They were already in a very hard situation before this came about.
06:31Iranians were struggling before financially.
06:34There was a massive currency devaluation that hurt everyone's savings.
06:39Everyone who hadn't gotten their money into gold or dollars before this devaluation was hurt extremely hard.
06:45And in addition to that, people who are on salaries are basically their money is worthless.
06:50And every time there's a devaluation, there's a bit of a salary increase, but it's never enough to make up
06:57for the loss.
06:58And so, yeah, there's a real struggle.
07:00And people are just getting by, and sometimes they're not getting by.
07:03And it's always been like this.
07:05It's been like this for years and years now, since the maximum pressure campaign,
07:09since the exacerbation of the Iranian regime's mismanagement of the economy.
07:14I mean, there's been struggles among people and a struggle to live and survive.
07:21Borizud Daragahi, independent journalist, also author of the newsletter Badlands.
07:25Thank you very much for sharing your insights with us here at France 24 today.
Comments