"No one says: shoot. The order is: stop the protest. How you do it — is up to you." Two high-ranking defectors — a former intelligence officer and a commander in Iran's elite special forces — went on the record. Using burner phones, encrypted apps and code words, DW's investigative unit spent months verifying their identities and the documents, photos and footage they shared. They reveal secret command centers activated during protests, a clandestine circle of officers responsible for ordering extrajudicial killings — and a system of total control that reaches into the private lives of those who serve it. Both men say they have been handed death sentences in absentia. This is the story they are risking their lives to tell. An investigation by Naomi Conrad, Birgitta Schülke and Farzane Saeedi #DWInvestigations