Then They Came For Me by Maziar Bahari, Aimee Molloy Page B

his honest campaign. As his supporters started to tear the pictures of Mousavi and the other candidates from thewalls around the square, Ahmadinejad claimed that unlike his competitors, who were the representatives of the wealthy and powerful, he was the president of poor and ordinary Iranians.
    He repeated his football analogy and said that the supporters of the losing team were trying to change the results. “But it doesn’t matter what a bunch of
khas o khashak
”—dust and dirt—“are doing,” he said. “The pure tides of this nation will eventually get rid of them.”
    Ahmadinejad’s speech added insult to the Mousavi supporters’ injury. People could accept a defeat, but not humiliation. Everywhere, afterward, people talked about Ahmadinejad’s use of the phrase
khas o khashak
. Mousavi had asked his followers to avoid any confrontation with the security forces and to reject the use of violence, and up to this point, most people had restrained their anger. But that was changing fast. Calling millions of citizens “dust and dirt” was the last straw.
    Young people all around Tehran started to clash with the police and the Basij. The police exhibited no restraint in attacking protestors and passersby alike. As the people became more frustrated, the police and the Guards became more organized. The anti-riot units had orders to leave no space for Mousavi supporters to move in the city. They took over sidewalks and beat up anyone who didn’t get out of their way.
    I went around the city by motorcycle and taxi, and when there was no way to get through the traffic, I walked. The city was quickly sinking into bedlam. Gangs of anti-riot police on motorcycles roamed the streets, menacing drivers and stopping traffic seemingly at random. A driver on Beheshti Avenue honked his horn in protest when policemen on motorcycles blocked his way. Within an instant, three or four cops got off their bikes and smashed the car’s windows with their clubs. They seemed to have a personal grudge against side mirrors and didn’t stop hitting the car until both mirrors fell to the ground. The driver puthis hands on his head and ducked down, but one of the policemen dragged him out of the car and to the sidewalk, where another officer started slapping him.
    “What are you looking at?” a policeman asked me as he pushed my face away with his hand. I didn’t see his face; all I could see were his black leather gloves with the tips of the fingers cut off and a shiny fortified plastic elbow cap strapped on top of his black uniform. “Nothing, nothing,” I said, striding away as fast as I could.
    As I walked wearily along Vali Asr Avenue that evening, I saw four or five officers beating an old woman with a club because she’d protested that they were blocking the entrance to her house. The woman collapsed with the first blow. Her black head scarf fell to her shoulders. As I saw the club hitting the woman’s backside, I felt her pain in my body as well. It was the same kind of electric instrument I’d been hit with the day before. Watching this scene but unable to act, I felt like a coward. I had my video camera in my rucksack, but I was afraid to take it out. I was afraid to help the woman because I didn’t want to risk arrest and imprisonment. I felt as if my feet were pinned to the ground. I wanted to beat the attackers off, but there were too many of them for me to be able to help her. As I was debating what to do, the beating ended. As soon as the Guards moved away, I and a couple of other men helped her into her house.
    “Khamenei will pay for this. He will pay for this,” she said, crying gently.
    Feeling utterly helpless, I went back home. At nine P.M. , I sat down weakly in front of the television. Ahmadinejad’s victory speech and Khamenei’s message congratulating him were playing on a repeating loop. The extent to which this government was willing to publicly humiliate its people was revolting.
    Before long, my