More Details on Saturday's Demonstrations

Update This video posted by BBC is worth watching all the way to the end.

Update: A friend passed on this further eyewitness account of Saturday's events:

' "it was a real mess yesterday..but the real feel of a start of something big...made it to Tohid Sq by 4.30......by 5 there were already large stream of people headed that way from all directions, right around 5.15 the guards charged from Engelab Sq. People started running and some trowing bottles and rocks....the animals made a demi-tour right on the junction of Chamran after beating some people and firring tear gas and went south.

This continued till about 6, when the numbers started getting larger and larger, people started running east toward Aazadi shouting "natarsid..natarsd..Ma Hame Ba Bahm Hastim" (dont be afraid, dont be afraid, we are all together) and followed by the thugs, at this time i found myself in a barber shop on Nasr St, with 5 other strangers urging the owner to close down his shutters, he had 3 chairs and asked 3 of us to sit on them to pretend we are getting a cut in case they come into the shop, we did so, and he actually started cutting my hair, he did a o.k job with few patches missing here and there,

He said his son has been missing all day and he is a draftee in the army (i will go back and see him when this is all over one day). I did not see any shottings, nor casulties, made my way back home around 730ish...from my vintage point I could see large black smoke all around Azadi...today the rumor has it that people are headed toward jame-jam......"

The below is a post by someone with good contacts in Iran. I have been careful to anonymize it but no important information has been changed or omitted.

According to my contacts in Iran:

1. Saturday, they watched from their apartment window a clash between the police and the construction site workers at the Towhid Tunnel (which is predicted to connect Parkway to Nawab). The police tried to make a shortcut to reach the protesters, and ambush them on the other side, when the workers told them they would not let them through this led to a clash between the workers and the police. The workers used all types of construction machineries to halt the police from shovels to bricks and the cement truck. The situation between the workers, mostly from Lor and Turkish background, caused some of the protesters to rush to the aid of the workers.

2. Most Azad University branches in Tehran have declared two exam dates for each subject for the end of the year and have stated that the students can take whichever that is most convenient for them. Pro-Ahmadinejad students and baseej have interpreted the move as a pro-Musavi action by Jasbi that allows pro-Musavi students to conveniently distribute their forces between the two dates and fill the streets. Pro-Musavi students have intrepreted this move as an action by the Intelligence elements to identify the students, making them Setareh-dar, as they will easily identify who has been absent when.

3. Tehran is full of checkpoints but the Police are inconsistent due to personal taste of the commanders. The checkpoints are active at night. They mostly look for counter anti-riot gears, such as masks, wipes and first aid boxes, but it also seems that they also look for Satellite dish equipments. Most "illegal" satellite dish technicians have gone underground as they know that the police are after them. One case reported to my family is exemplary in showing that there is a division in the ranks of the police, which in a way is a good sign. Two contacts, one of them a Member of Musavi campaign, were stopped at a check point and their car trunk was full of posters and green bands. The constables took them to their immediate commander who confiscated all the material and ordered them to be arrested. However, as they were taken to another check point where the district commander was, he overruled his superiors and ordered them to be released and also oversaw the return of the posters and other pro-Musavi material to them. As they got in the car to leave the station, the district commander told them that they have to be extra careful and told them (Movaffagh Bashid- meaning
roughly "good luck").

4. An obstetrician gynecologist at Martyr Foundation hospitals, said that about fifty young people brought to their hospitals had head injuries from rubber bullets. Half a dozen of them passed away before getting to the operation theatre. She believes all the people who are close to Karrubi family (she is a friend of Karrubi's wife) are under surveillance.

5: The Internet speed has dramatically increased.

6. The documentary film-maker whose equipment was confiscated by the security forces said that the intelligence have postponed her interrogation. Yesterday, she helped transport three people to the hospital, but as they were arrived the police arrested several other people who had brought in more wounded, and thus they were able to get away without being arrested.


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