Iranians in Tehran illicitly filmed scenes of their capital for Israeli Channel 12 news, an act that constitutes espionage in Iran and can warrant a death penalty.
The clips, broadcast on Saturday, showed locals at high-end shopping malls that the videographers said are only financially accessible to those connected to the regime.
“I filmed this video with great difficulty and fear, and I said I would send it to the Israeli Channel 12,” said a 44-year-old Iranian who sent footage for the report and went by the alias Ali, speaking in Persian. “I committed a dangerous act. If you just talk to Israelis, you become a spy and they will execute you.”
The report showed Ali’s face from the nose down while speaking with the Channel 12 journalist.
“I have a master’s degree in electronics, and I’m unemployed,” said Ali, who emphasized his economic grievances throughout the report.
Ali filmed himself traveling by subway to Tehran’s District 1, where senior regime and Revolutionary Guards officials reside.
“People are tired. The Iranian citizens, who are tired of the Islamic Republic, are uncomfortable, bored, servile,” he said.
Beni Sabti, an Iran expert, told Channel 12 that the Iranian regime considers the release of such footage from within Iran to be an embarrassment and harmful to the country.
Rani Amrani, also an Iran expert, told the outlet that had Ali been caught, he would have certainly received the death penalty.
Ali’s footage of Tehran’s Fereshteh Street showed lavish malls and women without their hair covered, even though hijabs are mandatory in Iran.
“Out of all the products, there isn’t one that is less than 200 or 300 dollars,” Ali said as he walked past store windows inside a mall. “Only one percent of Iran’s residents can shop at a store like this. Me and those like me, can’t. Ninety-nine percent of Iranians can’t.”
The images of luxury shown by Ali stand in contrast to Iran’s economic situation, which Sabti said is the worst since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.
Ali showed footage of a market in Tehran at 6 p.m. running without any electricity. “Unfortunately, we have electricity only one hour a day. God knows where the electricity goes.”
A clip shown on the report showed people suspended in midair on a rollercoaster ride that stopped because of a power outage.
“[The regime] gives money to Hamas, Hezbollah, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the whole world gets its share from Iran,” Ali told the Channel 12 reporter. “Why should we live in such poverty? Why should I be unemployed now?”
The report then showed another Iranian’s footage of a high-end restaurant in Tehran.
“This restaurant we’re seeing, if I come in to eat one meal, it will cost half my monthly salary,” he said. “Only the men, children of the country’s leaders, children of politicians, the Revolutionary Guards, their children, them themselves, only they can come shop in [stores] like this.”
The report also showed footage of young Iranians with connections to the regime at luxurious parties in bathing suits and without their hair covered.
“They’re always saying ‘Death to America, Death to England,’ all over while their children have American, British and Canadian passports,” Ali told Channel 12. “People are angry at them and disturbed by them.”
Channel 12 also interviewed a Baha’i woman, using the alias Miriam, about Iranian women’s discontent with mandatory hijab laws.
Miriam told Channel 12 that while the enforcement of hijab laws has generally become more “gentle,” women fear receiving fines for driving without a head covering. “You receive [a fine] if you are caught without a hijab behind the wheel three times. You receive three text messages telling you to adhere to the hijab mandate, and if you don’t adhere, they will impound your car.”
Miriam said that after the death of Mahsa Amini — who died while in the custody of Iranian morality police for not wearing a hijab, sparking widespread protests — she found the courage to walk in the streets with her head uncovered.
“I think this regime will not last. Considering the pressures placed on it and the mistakes it made toward its people, it won’t last. It will destroy itself with its own hands.”
When asked what she thinks of Israel, Miriam said, “We all want to have good relations with Israel, and we all love Israel… It’s funny, many Iranian women fell in love with the Israeli soldiers that were so handsome. They hoped Israel would attack Iran.”
Ali, who said that until a decade ago he supported the regime, ended his interview with a message to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei:
“Know this, Khamenei, this is your end, you’re old, you’re dying. Nobody will replace you. We, the regular people, won’t allow it. If the working class wants to revolt, bullets and tanks won’t be able to stand in its way. The people will take down this regime… Later, they’ll write in the pages of history that there used to be a country like that. It was the richest country in the world, but its people were the poorest in the world.”