Friday, 27 Shahrivar.
11:00 PM
It has been a long day. I am tired and will hit the sack very soon, so here are my notes which I will have to post later as internet has almost crawled to a stop and the proxies are not working.
10:30 AM
As we went down Modarres Freeway toward 7-Tir Square, traffic was getting heavier, a good sign, and by the Abbas-Abad exit it came to a standstill. We noticed some people wearing green armbands in their cars and others were showing V signs. As we got closer, the picture became clear: it is green day. We took the exit before 7-Tir, parked in an alley, took out our wristbands and walked south toward Karim Khan Avenue, from which a heavy rumble was emanating.
11:00 AM
I will vouch for 7-Tir and Karim Khan Avenue. They were green and only green, packed just as they were on the Wednesday after election day, over and under the bridge. The march had begun and we joined, and during the first minute, our group was silent, secretly holding back our tears.
Some of the new slogans of the day:
“Neither Ghaza nor Lebanon, my life for Iran.” (Na Ghazze, na Lobnan, janam fadaye Iran.)
“We don’t want crocodile tears, we don’t want a Mesbah government.” (Ashke temsah nemikhaim, dolat-e Mesbah nemikhaim.)
“Basiji, have shame, give up being a mercenary.” (Baseeji, haya kon, mozdoori ro raha kon.)
We occasionally passed by small groups of security forces who were standing on the side watching the procession.
The crowd got very dense at Vali-Asr Square and came to a stop. There were government cronies taking videos of people. We continued with the slogans. There was a man holding a “death to Israel” sign who climbed up the floodlight tower where people had taken down a large poster of Nasrallah earlier. Everyone booed.
Vali-Asr Square was completely overrun by the greens when a truck with mounted loudspeakers and an entourage of government supporters bearing Hezbollah flags and anti-Israel posters appeared from the south, inching its way up and creating a wedge in the crowd. In order to get there they were spraying us with pepper spray. In fact, I’m not sure what it was. It smelled different from the tear gas and more like a burning automobile clutch, and there was no smoke. I just felt a sharp burning in my throat, getting worse very quickly, and my eyes watered. We then got squeezed as the car pushed people north and on to Vali-Asr Avenue.
Following the car was a procession of government supporters that eventually moved into Keshavarz Boulevard going west. By now I had been separated from the group along with another friend. They had gone on to Keshavarz Boulevard ahead of the government demonstration. We rested a little on Vali-Asr Avenue and then decided to take the side streets west to get ahead of the government demonstration, and perhaps catch up with the rest of our gang. When we got back on Keshavarz Boulevard, the crowds had mixed. Pro-government demonstrators were going through the middle while the greens were on the sides and everyone was shouting slogans at each other. The pro-government procession was essentially sandwiched between the greens in the front and back, and on the sides. Buses parked on Keshavarz Boulevard were sprayed, now displaying green slogans.
1:00 PM
We were past Palestine Street and noticed that security forces were blocking routes going south towards Enghelab Avenue. Broadcast of Ahmdinejad’s speech on the loudspeakers was ongoing, but we could barely make out what he was saying. I managed to call someone from the rest of the group and he told me they had gotten to 16-Azar Avenue (close to Tehran University and the site of the Friday Prayers) and were sitting there, shouting slogans. Instead of joining up with them, I said we would turn back toward 7-Tir as the greens were now on the other side of Keshavarz Boulevard going in that direction. And so, the march started again and the automobile demonstrators had packed the area and honking by then.
1:30 PM
We noticed security forces mobilizing near Vali-Asr Square and the intersections on the south side of Karim Khan Avenue. I called to tell the guys behind us to beware as something was going on, but didn’t manage to get through. We continued toward 7-Tir. Security was now heavy at Vali-Asr Square behind us.
2:00 PM
We saw security forces in every street south of Karim Khan, so after the bridge and before getting to 7-Tir we knew it was time to get out. Some people were also telling others to start dispersing as it looked like the time for clashes was near. Further up, bikers started to rush the people and we turned north into Sanaie Avenue. The Basij mercenaries had showed up by now as well.
We saw a huge column of smoke go up in the vicinity of 7-Tir Square, and a call came from a friend, who said Basij and riot police were let loose on the crowds there too. The smoke was apparently from plastic dividers in 7-Tir that were set ablaze. He was running north and getting out of the area. Most of what we did around Sanaie and Kheradmand was the same: running away from riot police and Basij and avoiding batons. We even got some water and cold-cut from an Armenian store. There is nothing wrong with a little luxury.
2:30 PM
We were in a relatively quiet street when a friend from the group called. He was incoherent and disoriented. I asked if he had been beaten and he said that he had been hit on the head. “Are you bleeding?” and he told me his knee was, but that was about it. At first he couldn’t tell me where he was, but once we managed to establish that, I told him he needed to turn west somewhere. He was out of it, and could not tell east from west, so I told him to stay put and we were on our way.
It took us about an hour and several more phone calls to find him. He kept moving in random directions out of fear of being spotted by security forces, and we couldn’t cut our way east as they had blocked many of the streets. When we finally found him, his face was red, his pants were torn at the knees and he had a huge bump on the back of his head. We walked him towards the car, a good twenty minutes away, but there was no other choice.
This is his story:
They were attacked somewhere at the east end of the Karim Khan bridge, near the Etemad-e Melli building. They all scattered and ran in different directions, when suddenly one of the riot policemen jumped in front of him and sprayed his face with pepper spray. He ran past him and was hit on the head with the baton the security guy was holding in his other hand. He fell into a ditch, crawled out, was grabbed by his leg and pulled around. He heard voices of women around him yelling at the riot officer to let go, which he finally did, and he kept crawling on the sidewalk until another woman pulled him into a building. There were a number of injured people there, and two mid-ranking regular police officers were sitting among them. He thought this was the end of him; that they were keeping the crowd there to take them away later. It turned out that the officers were helping people, asking them about their injuries and telling them what to do.
When a call came on one of the officers’ walkie-talkie, he said to his superior that he could not go because he was hit in the leg with a rock and couldn’t move. A lie. After a short recovery in front of an air conditioning system, my friend took off and made his way north of Karim Khan until we found him. On his way out, one of the policemen told him: “Remember, we didn’t beat anyone.”
3:30 PM
On our way to the car, calls came in from the other two members in our group. One was hit with a baton on the shoulder but was fine and the other was unharmed and had taken refuge in someone’s house. We met up with them on Sanaie street. Although our injured friend seemed okay by now, we spent the afternoon taking him to a hospital for a CT Scan just in case. They confirmed he was okay. Our motto today was “anything but arrest”. Easier said than done, as in that situation there is very little one can do. Our friend came close and was lucky for having the women around.
In retrospect, now that I know everyone is fine, the most emotional part of the day was the beginning, when our fears of a low turnout faded, and we saw the ocean of green once more. The general sentiment is pride in the complete ruining of Qods Day. The important part is that when the attacks started, people from both camps were present on the streets. Absent in previous demonstrations, pro-government families got a chance to see how others are treated on the streets today.
Tags: demonstrations, protests, Qods Day