Doubled Over

April 4, 2010 in Reports by P. Umpire

We are back at the grind and vacation is over, but not without its share of adventure. We just cannot get away from that in Iran, no matter how hard we try, be it a simple trip to the passport office, or one for vacation.

I went up to a remote village in Gilan for a few days to relax and cut myself off from everything, especially the news. I had no television or radio, no internet, and barely answered my phone. Strangely, and with the exception of one issue of Iran, no newspapers were published during the holidays this year either, so I didn’t have the option of getting one at the nearby town even if I wanted to. If I remember correctly, papers normally took a five day break for the holidays which I always thought it to be a bit ridiculous anyway, but I guess this year they were as tired as I was. They started appearing at the newsstands today, the fourteenth.

The only bit of news I received was from a friend. He called to let me know that this year had been dubbed “Double endeavor, double work”. I thanked him, hung up, and wondered what infinite wisdom this naming might entail.

I returned to Tehran on the seventh, by taking the new Qazvin-Rasht highway which opened on the first day of this year after seven years of construction and development. All the talk and fanfare about the new road’s opening, and how it will cut a two-hour chunk off my travel time to Tehran sounded tempting.

Banner announcing the opening of the Qazvin-Rasht highway for the Norouz, with “the warm presence of Dr. Ahmadinejad, and the Transportation Minister.”
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Costing about 350 million dollars to complete, the new highway connects Qazvin to Rasht, boasts two lanes in each direction and lets you drive at 120 kilometers per hour between the two cities; quite an improvement compared to the old thin road. It is also quite beautiful as it runs through a long stretch of untainted nature.

The highway has a few minor problems though. Its engineers have only included three exits in its 127-kilometer span. One is at Roodbar, where you are forced to exit because the road is not completed yet. You need to get off there and drive on the old road from Roodbar to Manjil, a half-hour drive now taking about two hours because of the bottleneck. You can get back on the new road at Manjil. The next exit is Loshan, and nothing after that. Nothing. There are no police stations and kiosks, no restaurants, no restrooms, no roadside service, and no place to stop for a minute, not even a tiny village. There is just you and nature, and a lot of other cars.

At the mountainous Koohin, it started to snow. We slowed down as visibility became poor, and some cars – the old Peykans especially – started having trouble driving straight on the slippery road. As congestion increased, the two-lane road magically grew another three lanes, which is a normal occurrence in Iran, slowing down the traffic even more. Before long, whatever movement remained on the new road came to a complete stop.

We sat in our cars for a little while. Then we got out to check the horizon for any movement. There was none. We asked each other what was going on. There was obviously just snow, traffic and Iranian drivers. We got back in. Mobile phones did not work because it was, well, the middle of nowhere. We turned on our radios to hear if the Police were saying anything. They were not, so we got out and asked the same questions again. Naturally, bladders were filling up and the only choice available was to hop over the guardrails, walk a few feet and try to relax in front of the endless line of cars.

About two hours passed and we finally heard the Qazvin Police on the radio telling people they were aware of the problem and were doing the best they can. What exactly was the best, we never found out, but he did mention that the Police had been working straight for many days because of the holiday traffic and they hadn’t seen any sleep while serving the nation, asking people to be patient.

We were patient for another hour. Occasionally cars would come down the other direction giving us news about the situation. It was hopeless. Their side of the road was clogged as badly as ours, and they were the lucky ones at the tip of the traffic. There was no way the Police could get to this part of the road. “Turn around,” some of them said. “Turn around?” we asked. “Yes. We just did.”

There was only one way to do this: attack the guardrails. And so, people redoubled their effort and got to work, and this is when the words I had heard earlier in the week spun in my head once again: “Double endeavor, double work”, “Further diligence, further work”, or essentially “Beware! We have moved on to introduce our celestial management skills to the rest of the world, and have left administration of the country to the Lord who is very busy. You are on your own, so get to it.”

As we drove back, we never saw the Police, or any other authority’s warm presence. Finally, back at the Manjil exit, we got back on the good old road, which was moving simply because trucks were available to throw sand on the snow, and drove back to Tehran. We had left Rasht at noon and arrived in Tehran at one in the morning. Without the new highway, the trip usually took six hours, if you stopped for food.

The Verdict

March 21, 2010 in Reports, Selection 88 by P. Umpire

The Iranian regime’s hostility toward Chaharshanbe Souri is nothing new. For years after the revolution, as we were growing up in Tehran, we held the celebrations in fear.  As we set our tumbleweeds on fire in our street and threw some firecrackers around, we expected the Basij or the Komiteh – security forces who patrolled the city in Nissan SUVs – to show up, and they almost never disappointed us. When they arrived, they would shout at our parents and break up the party. Once everyone was inside their homes, the smaller kids would go to the roofs and throw firecrackers and homemade grenades at them.  By then, news of Basij presence had reached the neighborhood bad boys, and they would promptly show up to give the Basijis a good beating. The older kids in our street then joined them too, until the Police arrived to break them up. Sometimes the fistfights in our street got quite bloody.

In those years, Chaharshanbe Souri was a means for expressing our defiance as much as it was one of the few occasions for having fun in Iran. And Chaharshanbe Souri was always fun, with or without the Basij. We always thought the regime’s antagonism toward Chaharshanbe Souri  was either because of its desire to wipe out all remnants of Persian history and culture, or simply because  officials were just plain anti-fun.

Over the past ten or fifteen years, there had been some kind of détente between people and security forces.  The regime had resigned to let the people jump over their fires and stopped bothering us. This year it was different. The regime was back at the game again, naturally.

In light of the recent fatwa by the Supreme Leader, declaring the celebrations un-Islamic and silly, I was curious to see how widespread they would be in the vicinity of my current neighborhood, so I got in the car and drove around with a couple of friends. We ended up covering quite a large area since there was no traffic on the freeways and main streets, and we went from neighborhood to neighborhood with ease.

In every neighborhood we checked, on the streets and in the alleys, there was a fire burning and people were gathered around it, celebrating. There was even singing and dancing in some neighborhoods, and we saw plenty of women without their Islamic covering, jumping over the fires.
In most places, neighborhood garbage bins had been removed so people wouldn’t set them on fire. That didn’t stop them from taking their trash out, leaving them in mounds where the bins would have been, and naturally, some of the more mischievous members of the neighborhoods were setting them on fire.

Security forces had a heavy presence around town though,  and we passed through several roadblocks as well. They were stopping the younger drivers and checking their papers or looking in their trunks. But overall, they were playing a rather decorative role, limited to the main streets and squares. They seemed not to dare enter the neighborhoods.  In some spots, IRGC or Basij members were standing on the sidewalks on the main roads, while just a few yards away in the streets, people were doing what they came to do: having fun.

We stopped at a friend’s neighborhood and joined them. We jumped over the fires and yelled when the kids threw firecrackers behind us. We also watched some fireworks there which paled those that the government had prepared for the Fajr celebrations last month. On top of the tall buildings around us, people were displaying huge, colorful, patterned and professional level fireworks. They must have spent large amounts of money to get the shows going.

At about nine in the evening, we took off to visit another friend whose neighborhood had been quite crowded and festive in the past years.  When we got there, it was evident that the place was living up to its reputation. But as we parked the car, a group of twenty or thirty IRGC bikers suddenly arrived in full gear. People started screaming and running and the guards got off their bikes and rushed inside the street wielding their batons. It was a mistake. People disappeared in their homes as the guards ran after them, and once they got to the middle of the street, there was no one left. Suddenly, we heard loud bangs and the street was covered with smoke. The guards started running back while people were chanting “Mashallah, Mashallah”.

A childhood scenario was being played out before my eyes once again. When the guards had gotten deep inside the street, people started throwing homemade grenades at them from the roofs. While these grenades are made to just make very loud noise, they can be quite dangerous if one is hit directly by them.

The guards ran back and stood next to their bikes, and we went inside my friend’s house and walked up to the roof to get a better view. After a few minutes of calm, people started chanting “death to the dictator” from the rooftops, and we saw some people on top of the neighboring buildings lighting up firecrackers and throwing them at the guards.  This went on for a while until someone threw another grenade which landed close to the guards and forced them to take off.

So we get to the verdict: no one gave a certain rodent’s bottom for the fatwa. In fact it solidified people’s resolve to come out and celebrate. With the exception of occasional scuffles between people and security forces and some arrests, most people had a good time.

Note: It is the Iranian New year and I will be taking a much needed vacation for a few days. I know I have many unread e-mails since I have been absent  for a while, so please give me a few more days and I will start answering them. If you celebrate Norouz, I wish you a happy New Year. If you don’t, then I wish you a happy Spring. And if you live in the southern hemisphere…then I don’t have anything to say to you at this particular time, unless you’d like to move.

The Steps of Evin

March 20, 2010 in Selection 88 by P. Umpire

If anyone had told me a year ago that by this time I would be spending my days in front of Evin waiting for the release of a friend who had been arrested on the anniversary of the revolution for having a green wristband in his pocket, I would have kindly asked them to go to hell. Iran was a strange place, but not this strange.

There I was though, in front of the Evin Detention Center, standing in the cold, and thinking how stupid of him to carry something as sensitive as that, and then how stupid of me to even think how stupid of him. But this is Iran. Something as worthless as the lint in your pocket may someday have the potential to take down the regime.

We spent the evening of 22 Bahman trying to find out where our friend – and myriads of others – had been taken. Given the circumstances, and the number of people arrested that day, he could be in any one of the detention centers in Tehran. Our only consolation was that he was arrested by the Police, and not Basij, or the IRGC. Though they are not exactly loved by the people, they are still somewhat legal in their proceedings, which increased the chance that my friend was indeed at a detention center and not in some obscure mosque. His crime was so nonsensical that I even had hope he would be released that very night.

A group of us gathered at someone’s house that evening, making calls and trying to get information, while a couple of us were out on the streets visiting detention centers, asking the guards if they knew where all the people arrested during the day had been taken. Nothing much came of any of it though, as authorities in Iran have the tendency to ignore inquiries, or simply misinform inquirers. But late in the evening, through an acquaintance of an acquaintance who knew someone who worked for the Tehran Police, we were informed that given on the location of his arrest, our friend was probably at the so-and-so detention center. We weren’t sure of the accuracy of this information but it was better than nothing. There wasn’t much else we could do until morning, so we separated.

The next day, I went for a visit to his family. They knew the story – we had told them the day before – but we all needed to put our heads together and discuss what our next steps should be. Before noon a friend called to let us know that he had heard most 22 Bahman arrestees were taken to Evin in the morning for processing. “Evin?” I asked. “Yep. Evin,” he replied, but he was not sure. He was in front of the detention center in the morning when a chain of buses came out, and he followed them all the way to Evin. Other families waiting there had done the same.

Aside from all the worry, I hated being in the dark, unsure of the most basic facts. My friend may have been on those buses, or he may not have. We weren’t even sure if he was in that detention center the night before. What now? Should we storm Evin? “Were there people on the buses or were they empty?” I asked. “How do I know? They had curtains and I couldn’t see inside. The guard said they were the 22 Bahman people. He said all 22 Bahman people were going to be taken to Evin”. That wasn’t much help either. But Evin is where other families had gone to, and that’s where we went. I grabbed a friend and we took off.

We parked somewhere near Evin prison and started walking slowly and cautiously toward the main gate. As we walked, we were trying to spot all the cameras we had heard were planted in the area, and were planning our escape route in case we were attacked by government thugs. We found none though; no cameras and no thugs. What we found instead, was a large crowd of people. Some had gathered at the top of the steps leading to Evin Detention Center’s small door, next to the main gate, and others were below in the parking lot in front, talking, smoking, laughing, asking, worrying, and consoling.

We had been there for ten minutes, when a young man tapped my shoulder. I turned. He looked very tired, and standing next to him was another tired young man. They were friends. “Can we get a couple of cigarettes from you please?” he asked. “Sure,” and I took out my pack. “Thanks man, we haven’t smoked in almost two days,” he said. “Why? Did you quit?” I asked. “No we were just released”.

“Released?!”
“Yeah, they got us yesterday morning.”
“Wow! Kudos! You guys look good. I’m surprised.”
“It wasn’t a big deal.”
“Where were you arrested?”
“Close to Tehran University. They’ve taken in so many.”
“How did they treat you?”
“Okay, I guess. Last night was bad though.”
“Where were you?”
“Enghelab Detention Center. We spent the night there and this morning they took us here for processing.”
“Did they beat you?”
“Not really. Just the regular slaps and kicks. Some of the guards were nice though. But you know detention centers. They kept us in the courtyard, in the cold, until about nine and when they let us in, we were about fifty in a small, cramped cell. They gave us very little water, and they fed us once. They threw in a pot of boiled eggs and a sack full of baked potatoes. I slept with someone’s foot in my mouth.”

What the young man meant by “regular slaps and kicks”, was the usual abuse of power Iranians in a position of authority generally display. Growing up in Iran we saw plenty of this at school, when our teachers slapped us for not knowing our poems by heart, or after being arrested for wearing short sleeves or talking to girls on the streets. You are in their hands, and a guard passes you by and feels like hitting you on the back of the head because he can, so he does.

“So not too bad then?” I asked.
“No. Most of the ones treating us badly were the young low ranking bastards from the provinces. Just enjoying their day. Some were nice in there though, especially the higher ranking ones. The judge here at Evin was nice too. When someone complained to him that they hadn’t let us take a piss since yesterday, he started yelling at the guards telling them this was not how people should be treated. So they took us outside to the courtyard and said we can do it anywhere. Can you imagine? We pissed at Evin. I’m proud of that.”
“So how come you’re here? I mean, you should be eager to get home.”
“Yeah, I’m waiting for my wife to come get me. They didn’t allow us to make any phone calls. I used someone’s cell phone just now to let her know I’m here. She’s coming.”

We smoked and talked some more. They told me the people randomly arrested on 22 Bahman were classified as “Pishgiri” (prevention), and since their “crimes” were preposterous, they thought most of them would be released soon. “It’s crazy in there too. They’ve taken so many people that there’s probably no room, and prisons are already full, so they’ll let them all out soon,” one of them told me. They also said they had been blindfolded the whole time, but they could see from the corners.

During the time I spent in front of Evin, detainees were let out in batches of three, four, five or six and sometimes more, almost every half an hour, without any of their possessions, and without any call to their families. They walked out of the small door, rubbed their eyes and squinted before getting used to the light, looking to see if there was anyone waiting for them. People cheered and applauded as soon as they appeared, patted them on the back as they walked down the steps and told them they were heroes. Some of the freed prisoners would hold the V sign and yell “Victory!”. People offered them food, water, juice, sweets, and smoke. I learned to carry all those items, but I really stocked up on cigarettes. Almost every time I asked them if they were thirsty or hungry, their response was “cigarettes…man…cigarettes.”

The most reliable information you gather in these situations comes from the families waiting outside the prison, or from the detainees themselves. The routine was that every released prisoner would take a few minutes to answer people’s questions, which were mostly about whether they had seen their loved ones or not, and if so, how they were and what kind of dossier was being cooked up for them. Some of them had to call and wait to be picked up, and in those cases we would get to talk in detail. There were also those who found themselves stranded if they were from the provinces or if their families didn’t answer. They were penniless in a neighborhood they didn’t know, but people who were leaving would offer them rides.

Most of the people who were freed in those days were from 22 Bahman. But we saw others too, some from Ashura, others from months ago. Once, I remember a man in his early thirties came out and we all gathered around him. He was calm and smiling and his eyes were a bit red. People started asking him the usual questions. He told us he didn’t know anyone. He had been in solitary confinement for two months and he only knew his cellmate’s name. Some people apologized to him for the bother and said he must be wrecked. “Not at all. It wasn’t fun, but not a big deal either. I now know I can do it again.” he said, still smiling. I watched him in awe as his family circled him and walked away, crying and laughing.

On day one, I was asking about my friend too. Some would say his name was familiar, some weren’t so sure. Late in the afternoon, a woman was released who had smuggled out a chocolate wrapper, on which about twenty people had written their names and a relative’s contact number. This was an effective method. People who were let out, would call the numbers on the list to let families know about their loved ones. My friend’s name was on the wrapper. Bingo! He was inside.

We watched about a hundred detainees come out that day, men, women, young and old. I remember they released an old woman, probably in her seventies, wearing a black Chador who had difficulty walking down the stairs. A couple of people held her hands and helped her down, as everyone else stared in silence. I think we were all quiet because we were in a state of disbelief that they would arrest someone like her too. When she got to the last step she looked up and smiled. That’s when the crowd exploded.

At about half past eleven, a guard said there will be no more releases that night. We knew our friend was inside and that was progress, and a relief. We also knew we would be going back every day as long as it took.

Everything in front of Evin was counter to my expectations. Friends and families waiting outside to hear from their loved ones were in excellent spirits. They gathered in groups, exchanged information or talked openly about politics. They recounted stories of their own exploits at this and that demonstration. One young girl told us that on 22 Bahman the Basij had stopped their car and searched them. They had found a flash stick in her handbag, and one of the Basijis excitedly reported this to “Haj Agha”, his superior. When Haj Agha arrived with a laptop, he slapped her husband in the face and proceeded to ask the girl what was on the stick. The girl had told him there were two video reports from BBC and VOA about Ayatollah Montazeri’s funeral on it. “Is this the truth?” Haj Agha asked. “Listen, if I were afraid of you, I would have said I had family photos, no?”, she had replied. The Haj Agha then asks her if he can look at the contents. She told him if he thought what they were doing was legal, she had no problem with it. “But let me also tell you that what your men did, searching a lady’s bag, is not only illegal, but also unethical,” she had said to him. Haj Agha decides against attaching the flash drive to his laptop and tells them they can go. He also asks her husband to Halal him (forgive him). They reluctantly did, but told him there is a nation of innocent people who may not. “She saved my life,” her husband added at the end.

Some people had been coming there for a while. I remember, two women, in their late forties, were talking to a worried family, consoling them with jokes and laughter. “I’ve been coming here every night for the past forty five nights,” one of them said. The other woman turned to her and replied: “Sister, I’ve been here longer than you, remember?”

Many of the people who were freed would come back the next day and wait for their loved ones to come out. After a while faces became familiar and you got to know people. The Steps of Evin was a friendly and heartwarming place. I even saw acquaintances there by chance. Invariably we greeted each other by saying “Oh my, you too?!”

It was the same with prisoners as well. They made friends inside Evin,  and I know some of them have formed groups now that gather once a week to reminisce and have a good time. I spoke to another couple of young guys and they told me they had first met on 22 Bahman when they were temporarily taken inside a shop along with other people. They were slapped and kicked by the Police while they waited for their vans to arrive. They considered themselves lucky. “While we were at the detention center, IRGC guards would come in from time to time and told everyone how lucky they were for having been arrested by the Police,” one of them was saying. “They said if you were in our hands, you wouldn’t be able to stand up now.”

When the two were leaving, one patted the other on the back and said to him: “Ok Abbas, I’ve gotta go. Until next time,” and everybody laughed.

The management and processing at Evin was ridiculous at times. At one point, we heard from someone who was released that there was a group of people behind her, who were turned back and locked up for the night. We asked why, and she said: “Their release papers were signed and they were good to go. They even came to the door with me, but suddenly a fight broke out between the guards, and they sent them back in.”

“What do you mean a fight broke out between the guards?” I asked.
“It’s chaos in there. One of them started shouting and asking why these people were being released. Another shouted back saying so-and-so has said. Then the new judge, who was just starting his shift, came in and said they should take them all back in until he sees their files.”

Many people who came out of Evin, were telling us that we should see the women inside. “They are lionesses,” they said. They told us women were demanding, aggressive and rowdy, didn’t mind the circumstances much and kept talking and laughing as loudly as they could. They would even make fun of the guards and give them a hard time. One detainee told me he was sitting on the floor in a hallway along with several other men. They were quiet and facing the floor. A guard came in and told them laughingly, “You should be ashamed sitting here like this. Go and learn from the women. They’re driving us nuts!”

On one of the nights, a detainee came out who told us that some women were so loose with their Hejabs even in Evin, that one of the judges had stopped their release and ordered them to be taken to the Vozara detention center for the night to teach them a lesson. About half an hour later, we saw a bus drive by and go up to the main gate and inside Evin. Its curtains were drawn and we couldn’t see inside, but we were sure it had come to take those women. Another half hour went by, and the bus came out of the gate, again with its curtains drawn, drove a few meters and stopped at the street. We cautiously started walking toward it to see if we can take a peek inside, feeling sorry for all those poor women. The driver rolled down his window and waved to us to come closer. We were surprised a bit at this. Some people started to turn away when the bus driver yelled, “Come, I tell you. Don’t be scared.” He told us he had been called to take about fifty people to Vozara, but they hadn’t transferred anyone to him. “I’m going back empty. Look.” We looked through his window and it was empty. “I’m going back empty,” he said again, smiling. “Tell everyone not to worry, they’ll all be released,” he said and took off. It was surreal for an Evin bus driver to behave this way I thought, but again, this is Iran.

I don’t know how many people were arrested on 22 Bahman, but judging from what people who were coming out of Evin were saying, the number ran into the thousands. Some of the detainees had heard from the guards that the Police, IRGC and Basij were given orders to arrest anyone whose face they didn’t like. They had even seen pro-Ahmadinejad people detained in Evin.

They were taken to temporary detention centers, and were processed there in the afternoon. A file was created for each, with pieces of relevant evidence attached to it. Some had little green threads stapled to them, others had posters and flyers. In cases with larger material such as flags, or harder material such as knives, they would be sitting next to the files.

Rows of tables were set up with interrogators sitting behind them, and each detainee was questioned swiftly and moved to the end for a judge to decide on his or her file. The process took between five to ten minutes. They were then sent to Evin for further processing where they went through a similar procedure. They were asked whether they had e-mail, or ran any websites, whether they were political, and if they had lived abroad or had relatives outside Iran. Their faces would also be compared to pictures of people from the Ashura protests, and if they matched they were taken away. From all I heard, there were two matches. The detainees who told me this agreed that those poor people barely looked like the ones from the pictures, but they were taken away anyway.

One of the strangest bits that I heard from many prisoners was about an amusing questionnaire they were asked to fill out during their interrogation. I didn’t meet anyone who answered anything incorrectly. Some of the questions were:

Who did you vote for?
a) Ahmadinejad c) Mousavi  d) Karroubi  e) Rezaee

Do you think there has been cheating in the elections?
a) Yes    b) No

Who do you think is responsible for the riots?
a) The Supreme Leader b) Ahmadinejad c) Mousavi d) Karroubi e) Provocateurs

If the elections are repeated who do you think will win?
a) Ahmadinejad c) Mousavi  d) Karroubi  e) Rezaee

Whose fault is it that you are here?
a) Mousavi b) Ahmadinejad c) Myself d) The regime.

How many people do you think are part of the green movement?
a) 20,000 b) 50,000 c) 100,000 d) 150,000

May of the detainees I spoke to believed most of the judges and guards they met during their ordeal were green. They just couldn’t express it. “You could see it in the way they looked at you,” they said. One person told me he had seen a judge throw away evidence pertaining to some of the cases. We spoke to a girl who had been arrested with a pack of green T-shirts who was sure she’d be staying at Evin for a long time. But she was released because the judge had tossed the shirts out. On another occasion, a man was released who had been arrested with a poster of Karroubi. The judge had looked at the poster, crumpled it and thrown it into a trash can saying, “There’s no need for this.”

Some were saying that the judges and the prison guards were tired and angry also. They had been called to do double shifts for ridiculous cases and it didn’t sit well with them. One prisoner told us that some of the guards were begging them not to come to the streets anymore.

One Ashura detainee told me it seemed the Police were careful to follow the law in processing people. They were kept for twenty four hours at a temporary detention center and they were then given a paper to sign which allowed the authorities to transfer them to Evin and keep them there for thirty days. When I asked him why he signed, he told me the conditions in the detention center were so bad that most people didn’t want to spend another night there. Besides, they didn’t know where they were and felt insecure. They thought they could disappear and no one would ever know about them, so signing something and getting registered at Evin would leave evidence of their detention and was a good option.

Finally, one of the people who stepped outside turned out to be my friend. When he came out, he was blinking and getting used to the light, like everyone else. We hugged, I shed some tears, he answered people’s questions, and then we walked him to the car. On his way out he was told by a guard to be careful because his phone would be under surveillance for forty days.

While our friend was answering questions, a young man, maybe eighteen or nineteen years of age, who had also been released asked us if he could use someone’s phone to call his family and we gave him a phone. No one answered. He didn’t know the area and asked me where he could find a cab. “Nowhere near this place, but I can get you to a cab,” I said.

“You don’t have money though. Where do you need to go?” I asked him.
“Varamin.”
“That’s outside Tehran. I can’t give you a ride there.”
“It’s okay. I can take the metro too, I’ll be fine after that.”
“No problem. Let’s go then.”

The metro station was far and in the car I asked him about his story. He had been arrested near Sadeghiyeh and he had been carrying a knife.

“What kind of knife?” I asked him.

“A huge one. Everyone in the evidence room was asking whose it was when they saw it, and I had to raise my hand. They all nodded and said I’m in as big a trouble as the knife.”
“So carrying a knife and a wristband legally have the same weight in our judicial system.”
“I was slapped a lot and I didn’t think they’d let me out, but somehow they did.”

When we got to the metro station, we gave him some money to cover his trip back home. He kept thanking everyone and saying he was ashamed to take the money. I got out of the car and gave him a hug.

“Just be more careful…and never take a weapon with you again. You got lucky this time. Remember: Peaceful.”

Busted

March 20, 2010 in Selection 88 by P. Umpire

Have you ever walked among an army of Wargs, Easterlings, Goblins, Trolls, Orcs and their kin, the Uruk-Hai? That is how the battle of 22 Bahman played out for us. We spent a short time walking quietly past legions of government goons as they growled, grunted and drooled, until they took one of us in and forced us to split. There was no battle, no demonstration, and no sign of celebration either; just a short walk in the field.

When we hit the streets early in the morning, they were eerily empty. You don’t see Tehran so empty even during Eid, the New Year holidays, which was a sign that deeply worried us. With expectations over 22 Bahman set so high, we knew if the anticipated number of people were to show during the demonstrations, the streets should be bustling. It wasn’t so.

What was really worrying was not just the absence of cars moving about, but it was the fact that the streets were devoid of them altogether, even parked ones. So it seemed the case wasn’t one of people deciding to sleep in and forget the protest, but that they appeared to have left town. Tehran was a ghost town, but no matter. Perhaps we were late and they had already begun.

We drove toward Enghelab Avneue, and as we got closer, the streets were still empty of people and their cars, but the density of security forces was increasing (I mean their numbers. Their other level of density is high and flat.) At first we saw them from square to square, then intersection to intersection, and finally street to street, in larger and larger numbers. No matter again. We’ll get to Enghelab and walk.

We parked on a street somewhere north of Enghelab and some distance east of Sharif University, and started walking south. When we got to the main street, we realized the day was lost. On the sidewalks – sometimes on both sides of the sidewalks – security men stood in a line that had no end on either direction. There were all kinds of them, IRGC anti-riot, Police, Basij, plainclothes, cameramen, clubbers, gassers, paintballers and nasty onlookers, and this wasn’t even Enghelab Avenue yet.

Under normal circumstances it is the people who stand on the sides and watch the armed men of their country parade before them. 22 Bahman was the other way around. We looked about and tried to spot greens in our little promenade, and although none dared display anything remotely green, they were there. In fact, with the exception of Sauron’s army, and the few flag-bearing, sleep-walking pro-government families, everyone else was green. We even met some friends and acquaintances along the way. Of course we didn’t dare stop and greet them with our emotions pouring out as we normally do in Iran, and were happy to just whisper as we walked along, asking what was going on.

The temptation to leave the area right after getting there was great, but we decided to walk a little more and maybe turn south and try to get to Enghelab. Besides, turning around was suspicious, scary and not an option. We had to continue at least to the next intersection and go around the block if we wanted to get back to the car.

We passed one intersection and decided to continue and see whether we can make our way through to Enghelab Avenue. As we walked we came to a spot where about twenty police officers were standing in a group with two vans parked next to them on the street. As we passed through them, we were stopped and one of them ordered another to search us.

A very close friend – a brother really – was first. As I stood behind him waiting my turn, the officer patted him down and then proceeded to empty his pockets. First came out a wallet, then his mobile phone and a set of keys, and finally from his jacket’s side pocket, a thin green wristband.

The officer immediately ordered another to take my friend in. I froze. As he was escorted inside the van, I could only watch from the side while a thousand thoughts turned in my head. Should I do something? Maybe beg them to leave him. Only this once, please. He will never do it again, I swear. Could I do something? If I were associated with him, they’d take me in without bothering with a search. Oh my, the search…

I looked around. The police were busy taking my friend in, or searching others, or searching for others to search, and they seemed to have forgotten me. I had to make a snap decision, so I walked. No one called, and I kept walking. Further down, I regrouped with the others. Another one was missing. “Did they take him in too?” I asked. “No they didn’t. They didn’t even search him, but he changed direction somewhere and disappeared.” When we found him, he told us that he had gone inside an alley and dumped his bag of medical masks and all his green gear.

It was now time to get out of the area and put our post-arrest plan into action, so we walked back to the car. Before a demonstration, we are supposed to have cleaned our lives of all the incriminating evidence that may lead us to the gallows in case we are arrested, namely any corrupting music and movies, computers, dangerous books, and any artwork deemed too complex for Neanderthals to understand. If we don’t have enough time to clean up before a demonstration, which was the case with our friend this time, we leave our keys with someone who does not attend.

It was like clockwork. We split into two teams, got our friend’s keys, cleaned his house, cleaned his office, stored away all his shameful belongings, called his father to let him know, and were done in three hours.

We had expected too much of 22 Bahman, and we had underestimated the number of security forces the government would place in Tehran. The regime’s strategy was to prevent any form of demonstration through a large show of force, and almost indiscriminate arrests. I can’t tell how many were taken in on 22 Bahman, but we witnessed more arrests compared to other demonstrations.

Thankfully, with the exception of Sadeghiyeh, violence did not break out on the streets of Tehran as some had expected, and the greens remained peaceful, but disappointed. The greens did show in large numbers. Perhaps not the expected three million, but there was a lot of them out there. Most came and left the scene when they saw the number of security forces, and others like us were forced to leave when members of their groups were apprehended.

The biggest surprise to me though, was the small number of government supporters that showed up. This could have been their day. They had the full support and protection of the security forces, and the government had brought in people from the provinces to add to its supporters in Tehran. That’s why we were picturing a face-off between vast armies of pro-government and opposition members on 22 Bahman. Instead, we only saw small and scattered groups of government supporters among the greens, trickling down toward Enghelab Avenue, carrying a picture of the supreme leader or Ahmadinejad. Their numbers didn’t even compare to Qods Day.

The next phase for us was to find out where our friend was, which I’ll have to put in another post to avoid making this one too long.

All In

February 9, 2010 in Selection 88 by P. Umpire

I don’t remember being as freaked out as I am now before any other demonstration. Caffeine and Nicotine are my best friends these days. Part of the reason is the unpredictability of 22 Bahman, in terms of turnout on both sides, the regime’s reaction, and the outcome. I have a small window for talking about this past week as internet connections are fading away, so I’ll skimp on details, but here’s how things are, a sort of “word on the street is”, from my usual sources (butchers, intellectuals, businessmen, grocers, cab drivers, artists, old, young):

The Turnout: It looks like the opposition will hit the streets massively. Over the past ten days, the higher-ups, including Mousavi, Karroubi, Khatami, and some organizations, have come out in support of the demonstrations. We had not seen anything like this before. This time, the calls for protest and criticism of not just the government but the system as well, have been out in the open and unveiled. To me it seems like after a short period of dancing around, following the Supreme Leader’s call for everyone to clarify their positions, they came out and made their moves: All in. And if that wasn’t enough: All in again.

This makes turnout a particularly critical factor. Should Iranians leave the fields to the government, no one has any doubt that the regime will move to eradicate all elements of reform, up to the highest levels, immediately after 22 Bahman.

The Strategies: A low turnout is the best option for the regime, and up to now it has used its finest tactics to instill fear in the protesters and prevent them from showing. The regime’s recent rhetoric though, coming from the likes of Motahari and Ahmadi-Moghaddam, is interpreted by many as showing its own level of anxiety. The response: we’re coming out on 22 Bahman. Last night I went into a store to buy some cigarettes, and the owner abruptly said to everyone: “don’t forget your green signs on Thursday.” This level of openness is not something I am used to.

Some too, have told me that they are scared or disillusioned. Well, not in these words exactly, but the idea was clear. So the worry is there, that the government tactics – mass arrests, executions, threats – may have been partially successful. We’ll know in less than two days.

In case of a massive rally, there is talk about two alternatives that the regime has:

First, is to allow it, and this is the better alternative. Bear the embarrassment and let people scream on the streets, and they will go home in the afternoon. Maybe beat some of them on their way home just like Qods day. Simplistic? Possibly.

Second, is confrontation. This is the alternative that everyone is anxious about. This time, it is not an issue of fear – we’ve been through confrontations before – but one of scale. Some are saying – threatening – that if the regime prevents people from demonstrating, Ashura will look like a picnic. With the exception of a few locations, and with regime forces concentrated on those, people will have the entire city to themselves. Heck, they may even have the entire country.

There is even talk of the possibility of conflicts breaking out between government supporters and the opposition on the streets. A people vs. people scenario that leaves the regime’s hand open in entering the fray and suppressing the Greens.

The general – and new – feel to this demonstration is much like a medieval war. Two armies are building up and preparing to meet at the battlefield in two days. Numbers will mean a lot, but emotions are running high too.

The Broadcast: Yes yes, internet connections are going down. Nothing new. But does it matter? It is all too late and unnecessary, and the story will get out, like always.

Some genius said this week that a ship anchor hit the fiber down south, so there has been, and will be, intermittent degradation of service for some time. Funny thing is the anchor must have only hit the encryption, HTTPS, mail and chat strands.

Connections have been dodgy since last Thursday and getting worse every day. During this time, access through regular HTTP has been just fine wherever I’ve tested it in Tehran. It still is. But HTTPS has been jammed though, affecting services that depend on it including the better anti-filter methods. This varies from area to area, ISP to ISP. For the most part, they were nice enough to open up HTTPS during the day, while still disallowing access to Gmail and other web-based mail services over the past four days. But since last night, many haven’t had encrypted access at all. One ISP I tested today didn’t have issues though. No worries, it will by 22 Bahman.

The Immaterial:
Nuclear talks and sanctions.
20% uranium enrichment.
Building X many more enrichment plants.
Building X/2 many more enrichment plants.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Worms in space.
Oh…and worldpublicopinion.org too. (Would someone please tell these guys the debate over the election results is over? It has been for the past, say, six months. The election set off the snake to start eating its tail, and we’re ecstatic about it. Eighty percent, shmeighty percent. As I’ve said before, it is now about the 30-year-old sedimentary doo-doo finally bubbling up and hitting the fan; about people being crunched over here, not numbers, all at the hands of a small putrid group of medieval idolaters. And I said “small”. Now that’s a survey right there.)

See you on the other side.

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