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Today on State of the World, a crackdown inside Iran.
You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Tuesday, July 1st. I'm Greg Dixon. The ceasefire that brought an end to the war between Israel and Iran has held for over a week now. In today's episode, we're going to hear two reports about what it's been like inside Iran, both during that 12-day war and its aftermath.
In a few minutes, what do you do when the bombs are falling but there's almost no information? One woman turned to chat GPT. First, activists inside Iran say the government is cracking down on people suspected of collaborating with Israel. Iranian state media reports hundreds have been taken into custody in the last two weeks. Some Iranians are fleeing to neighboring countries.
Reporter Dury Bouskaran tells us more. Tehran is full of checkpoints right now, says Zahra, a 41-year-old women's rights activist. She says she recently served five months in prison for her activism, and she's afraid of being arrested again. That's why we're only sharing her first name.
These days, Zahra tries to keep a low profile. One friend is in prison because of three tweets. Both the news and the judiciary are saying they've changed the definition of spying. Even following a Zionist page is an example of spying, even if you don't know if that page supports Zionism or not. There's a lack of information about the prisoners, Zahra says. Where they are, whether they're physically okay...
Amid a fragile ceasefire with Israel, Iran is grappling with evidence that Israeli intelligence infiltrated the country to carry out its attacks.
This has increased their motivation to suppress critical voices and protesters. And if they don't, this might lose their power over people. This has resulted in more repression. Among the arrests are family members of Iranian journalists based abroad.
At least half a dozen prisoners previously convicted of spying for foreign governments have been executed since June 13th. That is mainly to create fear.
That's Shiva Maboubi, co-founder of the Campaign to Free Political Prisoners in Iran. She says the Iranian government is in its most vulnerable position yet. They've been attacked by Israel. Many of their officials are dead. But then, more than that, the regime is petrified of people coming on the street.
to overthrow the regime. Mahbubi says the crackdown is a grim reminder of the summer of 1988 and the aftermath of the Iran-Iraq war. They executed thousands of political prisoners. So the fear is now they might do the same thing. In the past two weeks, hundreds of Iranians fled overland to neighboring countries like Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia.
Like Mariam, a 27-year-old computer programmer, who says she left after Israeli strikes began raining down on Tehran. She asked to only use her first name for her safety. When I heard the sounds, I felt we were so uprooted, so homeless, as if we had no voice and no agency, and were tolerating blows for something we had no role in.
We are hostages who are paying the prices of the bad decisions of other people. Now in another country, she's not sure what the future holds, just that it will be somewhere else. Since I left Tehran, I feel like everything I achieved in my life has no value anymore. Others, however, are beginning the long journey home. In central Istanbul, a group prepares to board a bus back to Tehran.
A father named Mohsen, who gave only his first name for his safety, just put his wife and children on a plane to Canada.
Now he'll return to Iran so he can work to support them. The biggest problem the world is facing is that its politicians don't value human life. Repeated wars and domestic pressures, Mohsen says, have destroyed the fabric of Iranian society. I had to send my kids somewhere else so they could at least have a basic education.
quiet life. The society has been torn apart. He says he doesn't think it will ever be mended. For NPR News, I'm Derry Buskarim, Istanbul. During the air war between Iran and Israel, Iranians endured 12 days of airstrikes with no bomb shelters, frequent internet outages, and almost no information.
NPR's Jane Araf spoke with one young woman in Tehran who, alone and scared, turned to artificial intelligence. Roxana is a young shop manager who lives alone in Tehran. During the war, her family was outside the capital. Her boyfriend was doing compulsory service on a military base, potentially in danger and unreachable. Even her psychotherapist had fled the city.
Scared and confused, she turned to chat GPT. I asked about whether my home would get hit and whether my boyfriend would be safe. What would happen? It was the third or fourth day of the war, she says, and the airstrikes sounded like they were getting closer. The artificial intelligence app didn't have answers on whether her apartment might be attacked.
But she says it told her something she didn't know. I asked if it could tell me when the war would end. It gave me some information that was new to me, like the Islamic Republic's attempts to lobby the international community. It said it might take 10 or 12 more days. Roxana is 31. She doesn't want her last name used because she's afraid of being arrested for talking to foreign media.
Iran says at least 935 people were killed in the war. Over the days of bombings, Chad GPT became Roxana's security advisor, her life coach, and when she suffered panic attacks, her therapist. I used to speak a lot to it, and it knows me.
By just telling me that this is only a nervous attack and it will pass, it helped me a lot. Much of Iran was under an internet blackout. But Roxana says chat GPT was accessible when Google and other search engines were not. There are no bomb shelters in Tehran.
And Roxana says Iran's official media was broadcasting lies about what was happening. On their state media, they're trying to show, you know, everything is OK and it's so beautiful. It's like we live in a garden or something. It's almost as if they're covering a completely different planet. As her therapist fled Tehran, she gave Roxana some advice. Keep a journal.
In one of her entries, Roxana writes of missing bookstores and French pastries. It's a side of Tehran that might surprise a lot of outsiders. And so would Roxana's life. I'm used to going to bed late and waking up right before noon. I would drink my coffee and start the day watching my favorite YouTube channel.
Sometimes I would work from home. In Iran's shattered economy, like all her friends, she worries constantly about money. We're trying hard to stand on our feet, not to need anyone. But life is getting harder and harder. Now when I receive bills, I just look at them and I'm like, go to hell. There's nothing I can do about them. Roxana rarely covers her hair in public. Although it's illegal, she and her friends drink.
And in a country which is a strict Islamic republic, she says many of her friends are atheists. Her escape is video games. During the war, she'd stay up all night playing Life is Strange, where the main character can rewind time.
When the war started, she lost access to her The Sims account and the virtual world she created. The family I had built there, all the life I had built for these characters, it's lost. I couldn't save the family that I made there. Roxana says she had been learning German to try to emigrate and working on improving her online content skills to make enough money to pay her bills. But she can't focus on any of that.
For now, she says, she just wants a peaceful life. Jane Arath, NPR News, Amman. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening.
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