‘Everyone knew their role’: How Iranians united on night of dramatic protest against the regime

The burly, bearded men on motorcycles arrived early, racing up and down northern Tehran’s Shariati Street and menacing pedestrians with tear gas rifles and paintball guns. But the protesters had started early as well, filling the pavements of the major commercial artery to gather and chant slogans on the 40th day following the death of Mahsa Amini.

Older residents also emerged from their apartments, sitting on benches to keep an eye out and maintain a presence. Drivers began flooding the roadway, honking their horns in support of the protests ahead of the impending showdown.

“It’s like everyone knew what they were supposed to do,” said one protester in Tehran, a resident of one of the many neighbourhoods along Shariati Street that took part in what turned out to be the largest and most widespread protests across the capital. “My feeling is that people wanted to be out on the streets no matter what.”

Wednesday night’s protests turned out to be a watershed moment for the Iranian opposition to the Islamic Republic. Despite regime calculations that public anger would fizzle out, demonstrators came out in the largest numbers ever, including potentially tens of thousands who made their way to Amini’s grave in the country’s mostly Kurdish western areas.

Across the country, there were extraordinary and dramatic scenes. In Arak, activists lit a fire in the mountains looming above the city in the shape of Amini’s first name. In Amol, in Iran’s Caspian Sea north, protesters raised their arms and fell to the ground in front of armed regime enforcers, calling on them to open fire. In the town of Shahinshahr, a small city in the country’s centre, protesters could be seen facing off against security forces, chanting simply, “Iran! Iran!”

In Borujerd, near the hometown of slain 15-year-old protester Nika Shakarami, protesters seized control of the streets holding up a banner that said, “Nika dear, we will avenge you.” The religiously significant 40th day since her death was marked by protests at her grave site.

Protests and unrest continued on Thursday, with videos of large gatherings in the Kurdish city of Mahabad following the death of protester Ismail Muludi, 35, a day earlier in the city. “Woman, life, freedom!” protesters chanted in Kurdish, according to video footage.

Meanwhile, Iranian state broadcast outlets on Thursday all but ignored the protests, focusing on a still mysterious attack Wednesday on a shrine in Shiraz by purported Isis operatives from abroad that left 15 dead.

Numerous calls had gone out on social media urging protesters to gather on Wednesday on Shariati. The important north-south throughway is named after Ali Shariati, an leftist intellectual who played a role in the thinking that led to Iran’s 1979 revolution. The street also includes a historically significant house of worship, Hosseinieh Ershad, where Shariati used to give speeches against the Shah that landed him in prison, as well as the massive and verdant compound that houses the British diplomatic residence, several hospitals and numerous shopping centres.

It is a tree-lined street of mostly five and six-story apartment and office buildings of the type typical in the capital, with a few larger towers in the mix. Wide rainwater canals run along both sides of the street, and the sound of water flowing sometimes mingles with the traffic.

Security forces were posted at the Hosseinieh Ershad, as well as at the Shariati metro station and other important sites along the street. As soon as a small group of protesters gathered and began shouting anti-regime slogans, the regime enforcers pounced.

“The special guards would open fire and they would chase people down side streets, and fire teargas into the streets, even in the small residential neighbourhoods,” said the protester. “They were trying to take the fight into the sidestreets. But the people would try to fight back and go back to the main street.”

Protesters, often strangers, consulted each other in makeshift tactical operations meetings along pavements, sketching out the layouts of neighbourhoods in streets in order to figure out where to take the fight next.

“Even though there was fear, even though there was terror,  even though there were threats and the motorcyclists started turning down the streets, the people wanted to be out there, doing what they could,” said the witness. “People who couldn’t handle the tension and chaos on the main street gathered on the side streets.”

Older residents stood at doorways, to allow protesters fleeing regime enforcers to escape.

As dusk fell and night settled, the violence became more severe. There were loud explosions, gunfire and huge clouds of teargas wafting from Shariati into the nearby neighbourhoods. Then came groups of well-disciplined men on motorcycles, likely extremist Ansar Hezbollah militiamen beating clubs in unison as they roamed Shariati in packs of up to a dozen. Many fired paintballs at protesters, so they could be later identified and arrested.

Still the protesters came out, often teenagers, who would emerge in waves as the night wore on, even past midnight. The security forces had concentrated so many personnel onto Shariati, other parts of the city and other neighbourhoods were virtually free of regime shock troops.

“They were really trying to keep control of Shariati, but that meant that there were some places where there weren’t’ any security forces,” said the protester. “That meant that in some places people were chanting slogans and there were no security forces.”

The protester, a longtime Tehran resident who was active in the 2009 uprising that followed the disputed reelection of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said she saw demographic groups who she had never seen at protests on Wednesday, including chic apolitical youth more likely to obsess over fashion than politics.

Xural.com