Tehran and other cities face an undeclared curfew, coercion, darkness, and plainclothes repression—de facto martial law after a massacre—despite the regime’s normalization campaign.
The regime’s propaganda machine has been activated at every level to whitewash the bloodshed and deflect responsibility. At the same time, Tehran is experiencing the heaviest layers of security control in decades. Although no official statement has been issued, the capital is living under a de facto martial law—a situation in which the line between street and security post, city and barracks, has dissolved, and the daily life of citizens—especially after dark—is disrupted by security measures. A resident of Tehran says:
“For two days now, in Tehran, everyone has to be home from 6 p.m. Shops are shut, companies are closed. If anyone is on the streets, they’re stopped, questioned, or detained.”
They add:
“Shopkeepers who don’t open their stores are threatened in the morning: you’ll be fined and you must open so the city looks normal. In reality, everything is compulsory—by force.”
This conversation took place on Tuesday, January 13, 2026 (23 Dey)—three days after one of the largest massacres in the Islamic Republic’s history, with reports ranging from 6,000 to 12,000 killed, and, according to some sources, 20,000 or more. The numbers no longer feel real. The resident continues:
“Today they tried to return Tehran’s bazaar to normal, but reality is something else. When I talk to the kids, many have someone among their relatives or friends who’s been killed, wounded, or arrested. And the dead are not few. Almost anyone you talk to has someone around them who has been killed or injured.”
This is not limited to Tehran. Another resident, in Bandar Abbas, describes the city like this:
“The city is ruined now: pedestrian bridges, billboards, bus stops—burned. At night everything is pitch-black: the coast, parks, alleyways drowned in darkness. Security forces lie in ambush in the alleys in private cars, stop vehicles, sometimes search people.”
They add:
“If someone is killed, they take the body away quickly. Once they shot someone in the neck; we went to help, they came, fired, threw the body into the car and left—like collecting garbage.”
Yet they also point to a weakness in the repressive forces:
“Their security apparatus is a disaster—weak, disorganized, short on equipment. They’re afraid of people and try not to get close.”
Armed with fatwas and unaccountable paramilitaries
The question is whether, after the bloody crackdown of January 8–10, 2026 (18–20 Dey)—and amid an internet shutdown and communications blackout—the regime has imposed an undeclared martial law.
In a de jure (legal) condition, state actions and structures are defined by formal laws and ratified documents. For example, the official declaration of a “state of emergency” or “martial law,” according to constitutional procedures, is a de jure situation: its legitimacy is drawn from the text of law, and its scope, duration, and conditions are usually formally specified. Even if such a status restricts citizens’ rights, it operates within a recognized framework that can, at least in principle, be legally pursued.
By contrast, a de facto condition refers to the practical, unofficial reality of governance, even when it does not correspond to formal law. In this case, a government may never declare “martial law” in order to avoid international consequences or domestic backlash, yet in practice security institutions assume full control over civilian affairs, effectively suspend basic rights such as assembly, movement, and access to justice, and create a space resembling full martial law. This gap between legal appearance and actual practice is what constitutes the de facto nature of the situation.
In Iran’s specific case, it must also be noted that beyond the police, the IRGC and paramilitary forces (the Basij, aided by organized non-Iranian proxy forces) take on the task of repression. This complicates matters: in practice, these forces operate as though bound by no law other than religious decree, and to initiate mass killing—through Shi‘a jurisprudence as deployed by the regime—it can be enough simply to have a fatwa in hand.
When de facto regimes are stabilized through ideological paramilitaries and external support, the result is typically long periods of systematic terror, gross human rights violations, and socio-economic collapse. Because such forces are not accountable to domestic or international law, they can unleash unprecedented violence. For instance, in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge (1975–1979), the radical “Year Zero” ideology led to the destruction of nearly a quarter of the population through executions, forced labor, and famine. In Sudan’s Darfur (from 2003), the state’s backing and arming of the Janjaweed militias unleashed a wave of ethnic cleansing involving killing, rape, and the displacement of millions. In both cases, the international community proved incapable of effective intervention due to the complexity of external roles and the ambiguity around identifying perpetrators.
From citizen to “enemy combatant”; from street to “holy war zone”
When an “ideological obligation” (a religious decree authorizing massacre or mass executions) replaces a “legal framework,” the outcome is devastating. Here, the enemy is not simply someone who has violated the law, but anyone placed within an ideological category of the “other”: “traitor,” “impure,” or “counter-revolutionary.” Because the struggle is framed as a “sacred cleansing” or an “ontological battle,” any violence against the “enemy” is not only permissible but framed as a duty. Human rights constraints and the laws of war (where they exist) appear meaningless. Victims are reduced from “citizens” to “ISIS,” foreign agents, “hypocrites,” and mohareb (one deemed “at war with God,” a charge used to justify severe punishment, including execution).
In addition, paramilitary forces may wear informal clothing or a blend of military and civilian attire—known in Iran’s culture of resistance as lebas-shakhsi (plainclothes). These individuals may blend into the crowd and only reveal their identity at the moment of action. Beyond producing widespread fear and generalized suspicion, this makes investigation, documentation, recording, and prosecution of crimes extremely difficult. Hence the necessity of documenting everything from now on, so that these crimes can later be pursued.
A citizen who recently left Iran says in a phone call:
“The situation … how can I put it—war has started without anyone being able to call it war. Everything is like full-scale war, but no one can say it’s war. One side has weapons; the other wants to take their country back.”
They add, describing their work in a hospital in an underprivileged area before leaving:
“One night they brought more than twenty people into ICU; by morning none of them were there. A Nissan pickup would come to the morgue; they’d load the bodies onto the back like sacks and take them away. That’s it.”
They then point to a crucial matter:
“The poor neighborhoods don’t speak up anymore—because they don’t need to. The kids have machetes, knives, kitchen blades. And now they have guns too. A lot of guns. They keep taking some away, and still more reach them.”
This is a classic example of a transition from a de jure to a de facto regime: when the formal government loses control of its monopoly on legitimate violence, and unofficial paramilitaries become armed with ideological or ethnic motivations, society slides into a form of organized chaos. In these conditions, the constitution and formal institutions no longer determine power relations; instead, street-level power balances, fear, and weapons rule. If this path continues, violence becomes normalized as a method of resolving conflict and the population is reduced to beings focused solely on survival. This is the “system’s”—that is, Khamenei’s—primary goal.
