The Financial Times – Since the US and Israel attacked Iran last month, people across the country have received text messages filled with everything from promises of imminent victory to exaggerated claims about American casualties.
But one message on Friday, addressed to the “people of Iran”, contained a warning. “The wicked enemy, desperate to achieve its goals in the battlefield, is once again seeking to instil fear and instigate street chaos,” it read.
“Internal traitors to the homeland” who take to the streets in collusion would face “a blow stronger than January 8”, the date Iranian security forces launched a deadly crackdown on anti-regime protesters in which thousands of people were killed. The message ends with “#The_Final_Battle”.
Sent by the intelligence arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the message is a stark example of the ways in which Iran’s media machine — in overdrive since the start of the war — is being deployed to contain any hint of domestic dissent.
Along with accounts of military triumphs and patriotic cartoons, state media, officials and commentators have deployed aggressive rhetoric, threatening to shoot protesters and confiscate property.
“Once the dust from all this sedition settles, we’ll grab you by the collar, one by one,” said a pro-regime figure on live television this week, addressing “liberals, supporters of the west and those in love with Zionism and imperialism”. “We’ll make your mothers mourn for you.”
There have been no signs of the sort of unrest that spread across the country in January, during which US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency says more than 7,000 people were killed. Officials, who blamed armed foreign-backed agitators for the violence, put the death toll at over 3,000.
However, the US and Israel have repeatedly sought to incite another uprising, with President Donald Trump encouraging Iranians to use what “will be probably your only chance for generations” to take over the government.
Israel, meanwhile, has targeted police stations and security checkpoints with air strikes in a strategy Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said is designed to provide a “unique opportunity” to “overthrow the regime of the ayatollahs and gain your freedom”.
Iranian officials are taking no chances. Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said anyone taking to the streets would be treated in the same manner as the country’s enemies, while lawmaker Salar Velayatmadar issued a stark threat directly to parents.
“It won’t be our fault if your sons and daughters won’t listen. The authority to open fire has been given,” Velayatmadar said in comments on state TV. “We don’t want your children to get killed, because they are ignorant. So make sure you control them.”
Supporters of the Islamic republic have held regular rallies since the start of the war — broadcast live on state TV — in shows of strength designed to project the regime’s control of the streets.
This included nationwide demonstrations on Friday to mark Quds Day, the last Friday of Ramadan, which went ahead even as Israeli air strikes targeted areas nearby.
Authorities have also pasted banners with pro-regime rhetoric across Tehran, including several depicting assassinated leader Ali Khamenei handing over Iran’s national flag to his son Mojtaba, who was selected as the new supreme leader this week. “The divine hand became visible,” it reads. “The young Khamenei emerged.”
AI-generated images of Mojtaba, who has not been seen in public and is believed to have been injured, have been widely used in pro-regime rallies and on social media platforms. One dramatised video, disseminated by Revolutionary Guards-affiliated outlets such as Tasnim and Fars, depicts him directing missile strikes in the wake of his father’s assassination.
Since the war began, authorities have enforced a near-total internet blackout, cutting off most Iranians from online access. They have also taken steps to jam satellite TV channels, many of which Tehran sees as supportive of opposition groups.
This has left many Iranians struggling to verify information, viewing state-run TV as saturated with outdated propaganda portraying a one-sided victorious narrative of the war that favours the Islamic republic.
These channels have disseminated footage of Tehran’s missiles flying into the sky, destruction in Israel, oil tankers in flames and smoke rising from high-rises in Dubai after Iranian attacks.
They had also been warned against disseminating information or footage of bombed locations, according to the judiciary, while the intelligence ministry threatened to punish anyone sending pictures to opposition-affiliated satellite channels — calling them the enemy’s “fifth column” and US-Israeli “mercenaries”.
Radan, the police chief, said 81 people had been arrested for leaking national security information to Iran International, an opposition station, which has openly advocated for US and Israeli military action and regime change to bring back Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of the late ousted Shah.
Local media on Friday reported a person had been arrested in the southwestern city of Shiraz for selling unfiltered internet via Starlink in several provinces.
The judiciary too has said it will seize the property of members of the Iranian diaspora accused of harming the country’s national interests.
For many Iranians, living at home under heavy US and Israeli bombardment, the war of words has only heightened the feeling of being trapped. “We are being targeted not only with actual bombs, but we are also bombarded with misinformation and war propaganda,” said Farid, a school teacher, using a pseudonym.
“On one side, there is the Islamic republic telling us that we are the absolute winners of this war. And on the other hand, overseas opposition groups keep telling us that the Islamic republic is just a step away from collapse.”
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