by Alex Winston
IRAN AFFAIRS: Unable to change the outcome of battle, the Islamic Republic moved quickly after the June 24 ceasefire to reassert its authority at home.
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For almost five decades, the authorities in Iran have held the population in a grip of fear, with many scared of speaking out for fear of retribution.
When Israel and Iran descended into their 12-day conflict in June of this year, many also incorrectly predicted it was the end of the Islamic Republic’s regime. In a matter of hours, Israel took control of the skies over Tehran. It targeted some of the regime’s highest enforcers within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), though it refrained from striking at the country’s political leaders, including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Unable to change the outcome of battle, the Islamic Republic moved quickly after the June 24 ceasefire to reassert its authority at home. Its security and intelligence forces returned to familiar routines, albeit with new techniques, and the response has shaped daily life for Iranians far more deeply than the brief clash with Israel.
Domestic pressure leads to domestic oppression
“The domestic oppression machine operates in a different silo,” Iranian journalist and analyst Khosro Isfahani, who spent years documenting human rights abuses before leaving Iran in 2021, told The Jerusalem Post. “It was very brutally deployed.”Whenever the regime feels domestic pressure, be it from protests or economic emergencies, “its immediate response is mass deployment,” Isfahani, who is a senior research analyst of the National Union for Democracy in Iran, an NGO that represents the Iranian-American community in pursuit of US policy toward Iran based on the values of human rights and democracy, explained.
“Instead of beating you in front of cameras,” Isfahani said, “they take away your right to education or deny you access to banking. The oppression has changed shape. It is a slower burn.”
There are fewer scenes of public confrontation, but more consequences delivered through paperwork, digital surveillance, fines, and sudden bans from university or public services. The state appears calmer on the surface, even as it reaches more deeply into people’s personal lives.
One of the biggest changes since the June conflict is the way authorities handle gatherings. In the past, events featuring mixed groups of young men and women, Western music, or anything mildly transgressive were often shut down immediately and participants arrested. Today, many such events go ahead without incident. Videos circulate online showing cafés hosting DJs and street corners with young people dancing.
“Three days later, the Intelligence Ministry, the police, the IRGC, somebody arrives,” Isfahani explained. “The people in the video are arrested, the business is shut down, and those involved are banned from education or public services.”
The regime is no longer trying to prevent such gatherings from occurring. It is letting them happen, then using them as evidence to punish those involved. This approach creates uncertainty. People do not know which incident will come back to haunt them or when the knock on the door will arrive.
Attempted rise of Persian nationalism
Alongside these measures, Iranian officials have attempted to revive a form of Persian nationalism aimed at soothing public discontent and redirecting attention. Earlier this month, the government unveiled a large statue of the ancient Sasanian King Shapur I at Tehran’s Enghelab Square, showing the Roman Emperor Valerian kneeling before him. The statue has been accompanied by posters around the city carrying the slogan, “You Will Kneel Before Iran Again.”The purpose of this sudden prominence of ancient Persia in a regime that remains allied to strict Shia Islam is clear. The authorities hope to evoke national pride at a moment when they are struggling to deliver economic stability and a sense of direction for the republic. Isfahani highlighted that even Khamenei has encouraged this messaging recently, with eulogists promoting patriotic anthems that place Persian heritage above religious ideology.
As in many previous crises, religious minorities have been singled out for especially harsh treatment, and it was no different after the 12-day war.
“It has affected religious minorities most severely,” Isfahani stated. “Baha’is, Jews, Christian converts, these communities are always the first scapegoats.”
The examples are disturbing to those who hear them. A Jewish man was arrested because he belonged to a WhatsApp group dedicated to Torah study. The security forces treated Hebrew text in the chat as evidence of espionage for the Jewish state.
“This is a Torah study group,” Isfahani said, recalling the absurdity of the allegation. “The evidence that they use against [the Christian] community again is as ridiculous as in the case of that Jewish man. Having a copy of the Bible is evidence of you acting against the regime.”
Another case involved an Iranian-American Jewish grandfather detained for visiting Israel many years earlier for his child’s bar mitzvah. According to Isfahani, roughly 35 Jews were arrested in the period after the war.
Ethnic minorities have experienced similar treatment. The Baloch in the southeast and the Kurds in the northwest have long been viewed with suspicion by Tehran, and the aftermath of the war merely intensified skepticism of their loyalty among the regime. The Baloch community in particular has faced a wave of arrests and raids following clashes between militant groups attempting independence and security forces.
The Foundation for Defense of Democracies has tracked these developments closely. According to its mapping, hundreds of protest incidents have taken place in cities across the country in the months following the conflict. These range from full-on protest gatherings, such as Ministry of Energy employees gathering to demand unpaid wages, to scattered demonstrations over collapsing living conditions, and bold, individual acts of dissent such as anti-Khamenei banners hung from pedestrian bridges.
Ordinary Iranians arrested for social media posts
Since September 2022, the FDD estimates that 26,331 Iranians have been arrested, though many of the more prominent cases in international media have been in the past few weeks.The FDD’s tracking shows multiple cases of ordinary Iranians detained for comments made on social media. The pattern shows a society whose frustrations never fully disappear, even when the risks are immense.
The case of 19-year-old Bita Shafiei is a prime example. After she recorded a video supporting Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi, son of the deposed shah, security agents arrested both her and her mother, who had been detained in the past. They have since disappeared into the system, their whereabouts unknown.
Free Bita Shafiei pic.twitter.com/gEFTrqzShF
— National Union for Democracy in Iran (@NUFDIran) November 24, 2025
Names of other detainees continue to emerge from Iran, as more and more are arrested, people such as Kaveh Mehdizadeh, Kivan Mehdadi, and Mino Roozhda, none of whom you will have heard of, and none of them with any recognizable crime. But each and every arrest affects not just the future of those apprehended; it instills in their families, their neighbors, their friends the same fear of the regime, thereby deterring further dissidents.
Iran’s execution rate has also risen sharply since the war, continuing the regime’s long-term pattern in which executions serve as a tool for intimidation. Isfahani said the numbers are higher than at any point in recent memory, and they increased again in the months after the war.
Some of the executed were accused of spying for Israel or other hostile states. According to Isfahani, these accusations rarely match reality.
“Almost all of the cases [of executions for spying for Israel] that appear in official media are, in my view, random individuals who had nothing to do with any intelligence activity. Based on past cases and the evidence we’ve gathered, when the Islamic Republic genuinely catches someone spying, they never publicize it. Those executions usually take place inside a secure facility, often the nuclear site if someone is a nuclear scientist, carried out in front of the person’s colleagues to send a message. The regime never reports those deaths.
“What they do announce are executions of ordinary people arrested for things as trivial as a social media post or being in a group chat where someone joked about hating the Islamic Republic. Comments like that are presented as proof of espionage for Israel. They use these types of comments by these individuals as evidence of them spying for Israel.”
The regime treats these cases as a signal, both to its own population and to foreign governments, that it is prepared to act ruthlessly, based on suspicion alone.
Despite the risks, unrest continues beneath the surface. Teachers, pensioners, steel workers, medical staff, and energy workers frequently gather to demand salaries they are owed or to protest staggering inflation.
Although permitted and smaller in nature, these gatherings still show genuine dissatisfaction with a government already facing deep economic and environmental crises. Not every dissident in the regime need love Israel or wish the republic to fall. Some are just after a better standard of living.
Large-scale uprisings, however, require a spark or moment that galvanizes ordinary citizens. “In 2022, it was the killing of a woman over her hijab,” Isfahani recalled. “In 2019, it was the sudden fuel price increase. We are waiting for the next mistake.”
One of the biggest developments since the war is the rapid expansion of digital monitoring. The Islamic Republic has purchased large quantities of surveillance technology from China, including AI-enabled CCTV systems and advanced facial-recognition tools. After the June conflict, these technologies were rolled out at remarkable speed.
Whereas once, a woman who violated hijab rules would be stopped by the morality police and thrown into the back of a van, often now the allegation comes via digital means. Fines arrive automatically. Some find themselves called to court or see their access to public services restricted without ever encountering a police officer.
The authorities have discovered that monitoring people remotely carries fewer risks for them than public confrontation.
“The regime is changing the type of oppression that it has always done,” Isfahani told the Post. “It’s becoming more targeted, more sophisticated in response to the new conditions that it’s facing. But it’s not going anywhere in terms of lowering oppression.”
Even as arrests mount, the regime has made a concerted effort to present a different picture to the outside world. Videos of Jewish celebrations circulate widely, to give the impression of religious freedom within the country. Foreign documentarians, such as Tucker Carlson or Max Blumenthal, with sympathetic views toward the regime, are invited to show Iran as a tolerant society where minorities thrive. But it is a false narrative that is easy for Iran watchers to dismiss.
For ordinary Iranians, the war changed nothing about the forces that govern their lives.
Iran today faces many growing pressures. The economic crises and environmental disasters, such as the lack of water, have led President Masoud Pezeshkian to such drastic measures as announcing a planned evacuation of Tehran. Inflation and unpaid wages across many sectors all affect daily life.
Surveillance expands, arrests continue, and political space narrows further. Officials know how quickly things can unravel, and many now in power will remember how quickly the shah fell when public sentiment finally moved against him.
“The pressure is increasing gradually,” Isfahani said. “The people have not given up. We are waiting for the trigger.”
The 12-day conflict with Israel ended six months ago, but ordinary Iranians are still feeling its internal consequences. Behind closed doors, the Islamic Republic appears more nervous, more suspicious, and more inclined to confront its own people than ever.
Many feel that the next moment of rupture will come eventually. For now, the country holds its breath.
Alex Winston
Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/iran-news/article-876444
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