Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [31]
Afterward, the Revolutionary Guards received an order directly from Khamenei’s office to take preemptive measures to stop the reformists from stirring the public to protest against the election result. Since most Mousavi supporters were communicating primarily through text messaging, the government stopped the service. Mousavi’s offices were ransacked that night, and their computers and files confiscated. Prior to the election, the Tehran police had announced that they were preparing themselves for an operation called Eghtedar, the Might. It was nominally meant to guarantee the security of the election but it was, under Khamenei’s direction, becoming a means of managing the threat of unrest.
Under the supervision of Khamenei’s intelligence adviser, a man named Asghar Hejazi, and Khamenei’s second-eldest son, Mojtaba Khamenei, the Guards had compiled a list of reformist activists to be arrested. “Mojtaba Khamenei is worried about who will eventually succeed his father as the supreme leader. So, he is trying his best to prevent someone he cannot control coming to power,” a source in the Intelligence Ministry told me at the time. I later learned from intelligence officials that the Guards—in effect Khamenei’s private army and answerable to no one but him—had taken over all intelligence and security operations in the country a few weeks before the election. In other words, the Guards were in control of the country.
That day, as I went around Tehran trying to visit my sources, the streets were full of guardsmen, uniformed police officers, and plainclothes security agents carrying walkie-talkies. Basij forces were also on many street corners, watching people’s every movement. If a coup d’état means a military takeover, then indeed a coup had been executed by the Revolutionary Guards.
I had my video camera in my rucksack, but with the number of police officers on the streets, I knew it would not be possible to film. I decided, instead, to take shared cabs around the city and talk to the people in the cab with me. I asked each person in the cab about their thoughts and feelings regarding the election, but most people were not interested in talking. Only Ahmadinejad supporters spoke freely—and they were few and far between that day. So I dropped the cab strategy and began eavesdropping on conversations in buses and on the streets. Some young people were discussing the number of votes Ahmadinejad had won in different provinces, expressing their disbelief that he had gained such a majority over Mousavi. Over and over again, I heard many people lament the fact that their vote had been stolen.
When I arrived at the Etela’at offices, I saw many friends and colleagues who worked for foreign media waiting outside the building, along with a growing crowd of Mousavi supporters. Mousavi had released a statement on his website saying that he didn’t accept the election results. Now it seemed that his supporters wanted to hear it directly from him and show their loyalty. Hundreds of people were being held back by police officers, who had cordoned off the entrance to the building. They were politely asking those of us who showed our press credentials to go home, explaining that there was no press conference and that Mousavi was not inside. We didn’t believe the police, and most of us waited in the building’s parking lot to see him arrive. As we waited, more people approached the building. The policemen—who seemed uncomfortable with the task of controlling the crowd—became even more nervous. I could hear their commander calling for extra forces. He approached us and asked us to leave the area, this time not so politely.
“All journalists are spies,” the commander said. “If you don’t move from here in the next five minutes, we’ll put all of you in the truck and take you to Evin.” The mere mention of Evin, the most notorious prison in Iran, where many political prisoners were held, sent chills down our spines, and we left immediately.
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