Then They Came for Me_ A Family's Story of Love, Captivity, and Survival - Maziar Bahari [32]
I decided instead to take a taxi to Mousavi’s headquarters in Vali Asr Square. Clearly, I was not the only person who’d had this idea. Outside of the headquarters, hundreds of people were gathered, and here, too, they were being held back by the anti-riot police and the Guards, who were blocking the sidewalk leading to the headquarters and turning away anyone who approached. I pushed my way through the crowd toward an officer and shouted to him that I needed to get to a shop on the other side. He shouted back at me to move on, but just as I began to pull away, a plainclothes officer came from behind me and kicked me hard in the back. He then pushed me toward the line of anti-riot police. I fell onto one of the officers, who instantly kicked me and struck my arm with his club.
“Gomsho, madar ghahbeh,” he yelled. “Get lost, motherfucker.”
Stunned by the pain in my back and arm, I was somehow able to keep my wits about me. I was not a reporter anymore; I was part of the people. Holding my throbbing arm, I glanced quickly around me. The policemen were holding high-voltage clubs rather than their traditional batons. I knew then that they had foreseen that there would be chaos following the election, and had come prepared. My thoughts turned to the video camera in my bag. If they were to find it, they would arrest me on the spot. I walked away swiftly with my head down, weaving through the crowd as if I were just an ordinary pedestrian caught in the chaos.
I later learned that the police had been given clear orders to disperse all gatherings close to Mousavi’s office or the Ministry of Interior building, a ten-minute walk away. They didn’t want people sharing information or potentially plotting some sort of retaliation, and so they reacted violently as soon as they saw more than two people talking. As I quickened my pace, I glanced back at the crowd to see a number of policemen striking people’s legs and backs with their clubs.
I was watching this atrocious spectacle from the far side of the street when suddenly an anti-riot policeman charged toward me and the other bystanders. “What are you looking at, haroomzadeha, you bastards?” the officer barked, as he and others thrust their plastic shields into the crowd and lashed out with their clubs. I wanted to get a better look at the officers, but their faces were blurred behind their thick plastic anti-riot panels. I stood for a moment in stunned disbelief before I was quickly jolted back to reality with a shove from the crowd. A wave of people began to run away from Mousavi’s headquarters. I ran too, swept along in the crowd, and as we bolted, people shouted out to one another about where to go. Stores and offices along the street opened their doors to passing men and women searching for a place to hide. I suppose that we had all suspected that the police would stop some demonstrators, but no one had anticipated this level of violence.
As I ran, I saw two mothers who were trapped by the crowd and desperately holding on to their children. No matter which way they turned, there was a wall of people, and the police were approaching fast. The mothers cried out to the crowd for help. An old man with a Muslim prayer cap and white stubble on his face was standing at the door of a nearby building. On hearing the cries, he pushed his way through the crowd and reached out to both women. He took them by their arms and began pulling them toward his building. One of the mothers, with a chubby face and the big dark eyes of a Persian miniature, nodded her head again and again in a gesture of thanks to the old man as she ushered first all the children and then the other mother into the building before quickly stepping in herself. The old man shut the door just as the anti-riot policemen lunged toward