Word: tehran
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...product, an Iranian human-rights activist told me, and the person behind you in line is likely to whisper, "Don't buy that. It's from an advertiser." It includes calls to switch on every electric appliance in the house just before the evening TV news to trip up Tehran's grid. It features quickie "blitz" street demonstrations, lasting just long enough to chant "Death to the dictator!" several times but short enough to evade security forces. It involves identifying paramilitary Basij vigilantes linked to the crackdown and putting marks in green - the opposition color - or pictures of protest victims...
...camaraderie of resistance was visible at the July 17 Friday prayer sermon given by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at Tehran University. Nonreligious Iranians turned up for political reasons. The devout showed them how to carry out the rituals, with strangers handing out newspapers as substitute prayer mats for overflow crowds. Men and women prayed together, a regime taboo. When Rafsanjani referred to detainees, the crowd interrupted by roaring, "Political prisoners must be freed!" Calling for support of Iran's Supreme Leader, who backed the crackdown, another prayer official intoned, "We are all your soldiers, Khamenei! We await your...
...crowd Mad Max-style, brandishing wooden batons. Now they are playing more of an intelligence-gathering role, and consequently they have become much harder to detect. In recent weeks, many have shaved their telltale beards and shed their secondhand clothes; one group of Basiji recently spotted in north Tehran wore collared shirts, snappy dress shoes and jeans, allowing them to blend in with the trendy crowd. (See a video of TIME's Joe Klein discussing Iran's election...
...Iranian women in their early 30s who live in a tony neighborhood in northern Tehran say they do not go out alone after dark, particularly because the Basij have been cracking down on partygoers who try to circumvent the Islamic Republic's strict rules forbidding alcohol, dancing or consorting with the opposite sex. One university student, who claims that the Basij raped his former girlfriend after she left a party last year, says he has avoided venturing out at night since the election. If he does have to go out, he calls a taxi to come directly to his apartment...
Indeed, word of mouth has made the Basij even more fearsome. Stories abound of nondescript locals getting picked up for the flimsiest reasons. One businessman says an associate of his who runs a consulting firm was dragged recently from a flight back to Tehran and then whisked away by security personnel for days of interrogation. These Kafkaesque tales have become a part of everyday life in Iran...