TEHRAN UNREST: "IT WAS NOTHING LESS THAN WAR. PRAY FOR US."
An apparent eyewitness account from Tehran today, came to me in an email in Persian:
"At 5 pm we went to one of the meeting points, but there was no
one there ... At 6 pm we were at the intersection of Palestine and
Keshavarz Blvds (the center of town). The police were busy identifying
people. There were two groups: the disciplinary forces (police) and the
plainclothes (lebas shakhsi). Then we went towards Laleh Park but we
saw that the demonstrators were coming from Laleh Park toward Vali Asr
and they were shouting "Mir Hossein, Ya Hossein." We asked them why
they're coming this way and they said every other way was closed, we
had to change direction. Again we arrived at intersection of Palestine
and Keshavarz Blvds and the police attacked with tear gas and batons.
We were stuck and being attacked from both sides. People had opened the
doors of their houses, many were seeking refuge in the houses. People's
cigarettes and the fires people had lit in their gardens were
counteracting the tear gas. When things calmed down a bit we went
toward Keshavarz again, but this time we were encircled from three
sides -- East, West, and the Northern streets and alleyways. Suddenly
an empty bus appeared and drove straight into the demonstration. Inside
the bus was filled with plainclothes officers who were hiding and
wanted to attack from the center of the crowd. We ran away toward the
southern alleyways, one out of five houses open their doors for us. We
heard shooting -- we don't know if the bullets injured anybody. But
thereafter the houses were filled with injured people
One person had his arm shattered in different places, another had a
broken skull. As soon as we came out of the houses they continued to
use the tear gas and batons. We ran, but it was no use. A young girl
and young man were killed in front of us. We know that it was the
disciplinary forces that fired the bullets and were attacking people
with the batons and tear gas. The plainclothes officers did not have
batons, they had planks of wood to beat us to death. The Ansar (special
forces) were also there, they took a young guy right in front of us.
The police were attacking people; once they targeted someone they would
catch them and hit them to death. There were a lot of people
who are lost and have disappeared.
The mobile phones were cut off in many areas. Our only hope was
people's houses who had opened their doors to us. They had water and
fire to counteract the tear gas and they all had first aid kits. After
a lot of running away and chasing, we tried to get out of being
encircled by police. The only option seemed like suicide -- we had to
cross them, passing through hundreds of officers. They did not think
that any protesters would come toward them, so they didn't think we
were part of the demonstration. There was a lot going on during the
rest of our journey, but all the roads heading toward Vali Asr were
filled with cars honking their horns in protest. The police hitting the
cars as well, using batons on people.
We were in the red zone and it was nothing less than war. Pray for us."