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TROUBLE IN TEHRAN

Hey, I know things have been going pretty hard for you all in the West with Michael and Billy Mays and everything, I just thought you might be interested in what’s been happening in Iran since everyone stopped paying attention. As a...

A few nights ago the duo invited me over to their apartment for an early dinner. What was at first a sad display of three Iranian males attempting to cook Iranian stew quickly became an excuse to drink arag sagi (an illegal raisin alcohol that smells more like petrol than raisin). I asked them how their humanitarian mission was working out lately and the father detailed several accounts from the bloody and deadly riots that took place on Saturday the 20th, the same riots that became notorious for the "mistaken" death of Neda Agha-Soltan and many others-not as well known.

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The large numbers that were coming out before the Supreme Leader’s friday prayer sermon were now frightened.

Only a fraction of the protestors who’d come out in the previous week had shown up that day, and with the divine word of the Supreme Leader as their inspiration, police and militia set out to teach a lesson to anyone who had come to illegally protest the results of the free and fair elections. In his friday sermon at Tehran University (the same location where several students had been killed in their dorms a few nights before), Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei defended the election results and warned that any more protest would be met with zero tolerance.

Through the chaos of mercilessly beating anyone in sight, live ammunition being fired into the crowds, tear gas, water canons, and sharpshooters picking off fellow countrymen, Ibrahim and Ismael could do practically nothing to help anyone being cornered, beaten, or apprehended. The one person they saw attempt to escape was a teenager, tie wrapped at the wrist, who got up to run away but fell face-first on the asphalt – his life ending immediately afterwards when a Basiji held down his head and slit his throat. What the fuck…

About the only help they could provide was carrying the wounded into private gardens, holding pressure down on bullet wounds, and other general consolation. After a half an hour or so Ishmael took the reins of the story, I believe out of pity. He would often glance towards his father more and more delicately as the father eventually became completely absorbed, and for a little while I suspected the son left something out of the story to ease his father’s mind. After another several rounds of arag sagi and a glance through Ibrahim's '79 Revolution photo album, Ibrahim and Ismael convinced me to join them in the next demonstration near the Majlis (Iran's parliament building). Brimming with confidence and fermented raisins, I was convinced that my presence would somehow change the future of Iranian politics and, admittedly, impress my former political science professors.

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We met the next day near the parliament building at Meydoun-e Baharestan ("Spring-full Square") and stopped at a fruit bazaar to pick up some fruit in order to better look like pedestrians accidentally caught up in the middle of the protest. Without fail, they looked like the ideal poster children of the Islamic Republic: Male, bearded, hair parted to one side, conservatively dressed in solid colors; two good Iranians simply out on a summer afternoon, doing daily errands before returning home to perform their daily prayer. I looked not so much. I brought my father’s old cell phone which miraculously makes no noises if you take a photo and additionally looks too old to even be capable of photography. Nevertheless Ibrahim really didn’t like the idea. "Take that out and they'll break your wrist." After expelling all foreign journalists from protests, Iranians have been relying on their cell phone cameras and news-starved foreign media to spread their pictures and stories, which has been a huge target for crackdown.

Waking onto the avenue leading downhill to the square, the noise of fruit venders quickly was overpowered by the sporadic shouting from police and militia ordering people to keep walking. Police, militia, and actual military of all ranks and units were out in the streets. It was a nightmare convention: police in black uniforms, others in beige, military police in camouflage, others in plain clothes, but the creepiest were the riot police’s wardrobe—brandishing live-fire arms and marching in unison, they sported all-black samurai-like helmets and reptilian body armor. It was like they were cosplaying some extraterrestrial S and M Dune fantasy. I thought the whole scenario couldn't look anymore fetish-y and Gestapoesque until a fleet of black E-class Mercedes suddenly peeled in and circled the square. (The whole spectacle makes you wonder how revenues of nationalized $160-a-barrel black gold would have been spent.)

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Not halfway down the block from us, a terrified 20-something guy ran through the crowd looking over his shoulder to see if anyone was chasing him, when out of nowhere, a plain-clothed man with a walkie-talkie jumped out, grabbed him by the back of his neck, and demanded to see his phone. We stopped to see if we could help the ambitious photojournalist when, again out of nowhere, a chain of black-uniformed police formed a circle around the scene like a big black caterpillar. Despite his age and conservative attire, when Ibrahim stopped for a few seconds to see what was going on the police shouted profanities at him to continue on his way. We never found out what happened, but I don't imagine it could have been any different than the next arrest we witnessed (briefly): three teenagers yelling and screaming "Agha! What did I do?" as police slapped, kicked, and pepper-sprayed them. Ibrahim attempted to intervene, but again was ignored. It was no longer even an ideological battle. There was no rhetoric. One of the teenagers was clubbed in the neck without warning. He fell to the ground twitching and, it quickly became clear, paralyzed from the waist down. We didn’t know if we should move him but we did know that anything we did would have to wait until the Basiji and police moved on to another target, so like janitors we waited to clean up the mess.

Just behind me an elderly, white-haired man had taken out his camcorder to film the brutally. Abruptly, another plain-clothed Basiji grabbed him out of the crowd, slapped him across the face and put him under arrest. A policeman dragged one of the teenagers away from the others and, frustrated, yanked a fistful hair out of his scalp. He turned to eye Ismael and I suspiciously as we gawked in horror. Ismael nudged me and we decided to distance ourselves a bit. We crouched down and hid in the crowd of passing protesters and popped up to look for Ibrahim. He was still with the other teenagers, one of which held his hand against his head after being clubbed, not out of pain, but because blood was still spouting through his fingers. Ibrahim stood hopelessly still, and tears of frustration and fear swelled in his eyes as blood from the teenagers head splattered inches from his feet.

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Everyone was frozen, too frightened to make even a simple peep when conservatively-veiled women our grandmother's age lay beaten at the feet of the police, when white-haired men our grandfather's age were being slapped by folks half their age, or worse when dozens of pubescent Basiji, carrying batons and wooden poles marched confidently in camouflage military outfits along the avenues. The streets were theirs. We could do nothing now, but act on our own fear and paranoia. I started walking away from the scene as soon as I saw riot police in the samurai helmets approaching us with teargas guns and batons. When they charged us (us, not the would-be protestors, but sheepish spectators) I dropped my head down and never looked back, not knowing if the father and son stayed or fled. Others caught on and did likewise. Layers of inhuman screams were too close behind me for comfort and projecting a crunching noise which only later I realized was the sound of batons breaking bones. I pretended to ignore everything happening around me and cowardly held out my bag of fruit like a white flag.

I ran for a few blocks and hopped in the first taxi that I saw. Before ducking my head to get through the passenger side door, I read "Pink Floyd -The Wall" written into the collected dust on the roof. The driver couldn’t have been older than 27 or 28, like many suffering college graduates making their living driving taxis in the evening. As soon as I told him my destination he motioned to a box of facial tissues. I was sweaty after walking for three hours in the midday heat and my nose had started bleeding from either the city's pollution or the aggravation. I felt pathetic.

"Thank you," I said to him in Farsi and shoved a few tissues into into my nose.

"Did you get hit? I can take you to a clinic close by, or an embassy. They're not supposed to deny you or ask any questions."

I tried to be calm. "No, it's just the summer heat. It gets really suffocating with the pollution."

He didn't continue the discussion but he could tell I was hiding something, or maybe it was my paranoia seeping into the conversation. People were known to be dropped off at clinics where after receiving medical attention, they were greeted by the same people they originally ran away from. Though I didn’t need to go to a clinic, I played this out in my head, nervously assessing the driver. You never really know who you’re talking to these days. I felt guilty afterward of my suspicion. When we eventually approached my home, he finally replied in Farsi, "Here, it's four seasons, but in our hearts it's always icy snow." Shit.