Tehran Today: Reports of Checkpoints, Abuse
From TM, a contact in Tehran:
It's kind of changed from the first week, but it's definitely not over over. it's just going to be more drawn out, I think.
It's become a lot more localized in a way. People just do what they can on their own with their circle of people. Demonstrations are smaller but in different places now. i don't know how widely circulated the information going around is but there's a pretty large amount. You can feel it with strangers even, like taxi drivers.
It's not that they're less pissed. If anything, they're more pissed. Because of the state and how blatantly they're lying. Even about the Neda thing? "She was not murdered by the Basij" blah blah blah. People are more angry. Initially there was shock, and they reacted.
When I was at the Ghoba mosque thing on Monday, a large number of them were religious, chador-wearing women. middle aged, wearing wrist bands. to them that's like going against the leader, who is the prophets deputy. It's interesting that they have continued to go for the civil rights thing versus the religious decree thing.
My friend's neighbor's son was arrested. He was younger. And they beat him really badly, to the point that now that he's at home he has nightmares, wakes up screaming really badly in the middle of the night, etc. So they do of course beat up. But the waterboarding? I had never heard before. Apparently they use hot water, too. and a towel, not a plastic bag.
It feels like martial law. There are checkpoints, they randomly pull over cars. They check the whole thing for cameras. Even if you're carrying a camera, they take that. So you're on edge because its not a normal--the forces are everywhere. It's a very physical presence. I remember the paranoia of talking on the phone, this that. The SMS network is still not going because they know that that is the number one way you are in communication, much stronger than email or twitter or whatever. So it's not normal, yet, but daily life is going on. I've heard that the bazaar has slowed down. They've boycotted a lot of products that are advertised on state TV. Even businesses are not running as usual, but people are still getting out and about doing their thing.
