A day in Iran I will never forget

Every now and again you get a day in journalism which you will never forget. Monday was one of those. We set off in the morning not knowing what the day would bring. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the opposition candidate, had said he and other reformists would attend a mass rally but the Interior Ministry had banned it.

We went to see Mehdi Karroubi, another defeated candidate, more liberal than Mr Mousavi. I was amazed that we managed to get the interview because he had not spoken since the election, but when I asked his campaign aide, he simply said yes, and gave us the address.

Mr Karroubi is a cleric, but unlike many mullahs I’ve met, he does not speak in elliptical phrases. He was quite clear. Here’s the translation of what he said:

“We’re taking to the streets because we want to at least be actively faithful to the message we gave to all those whom we had encouraged to participate in the elections, that if you participate they won’t be able to cheat and your votes are secure.

“Secondly, we know the actions of the government to be worse than this. It won’t suffice to sit here and explain in one sentence, because the government completely changed the destiny of the elections and has undermined the whole concept of elections.

This is a challenge for the Islamic Republic. It is unprecedented… for a government who is responsible for the elections to corrupt and ruin them in this way. Our fast and firm response is because of this. The republic nature of the Islamic Republic is crucial. When you make such a strike to the republic system then the Islamic character of it will also feel the blow. We believe the actions of the government are a grave danger to the Islamic Republic and therefore to the country as a whole.”

Another reformist mullah, Abtahi, was there – the two of them whispered together as they planned their strategy. The former mayor of Tehran, Karbaschi, whose release from prison I witnessed in 1998, also turned up. So we joined their crazy, helter skleter convoy to the rally.

Tehran traffic is the worst in the world and it doesn’t stop just because there might be an uprising going on. Our driver somehow managed to keep up as Mr Karroubi’s jeep wove its way, lights flashing and horn beeping, sometimes at great speed, sometimes jammed up to a halt, through the morass of vehicles. Then drivers began to realise who it was so they started to beep thir horns and suddenly the whols road was beeping its horns and eveyone was leaning out of cars shouting “Death to the Dictator!”

After a while, Mr Karroubi’s car was totally blocked so he got out and was mobbed by the crowd shouting “Allah Akbar!” as he walked amongst the vehicles. Ahead of me I could see the top of Mr Abtahi’s black turban as he was engulfed by the crowd. We leapt out too, and Bruce our cameraman took pictures.

The clerics were going to walk to the rally but we needed to get there quickly, because we would have to file our story. So we abandoned our vehicle – and our poor driver who was now going to miss his brother’s wedding – because it would be stuck for hours.

What to do? No taxi could take us. Motorbikes! I’m not sure how we managed to flag them down but I faintly remember standing in the middle of the road waving my arms around. These guys were great. We purloined three of them and they entered into the spirit of thing, determined to get us to the rally to film it and get the story out. They speeded through the mass of cars, taking alarming turns and squeezing through 6 inch spaces. They shouted at vehicles trying to come out of side roads. They rode up on the pavement and wove through the pedestrians. And they got us to the rally.

And suddenly it was quiet. The leaders, finally after two days of sporadic protest and violence, had told the people not to chant slogans or clap but to walk quietly. It was extraordinary. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians, with fingers raised in the Victory sign, walking calmly and the police looking on, overwhelmed by the numbers, no longer able to beat people off the streets with their batons.

We never made it to Engelab Square where Mr Mousavi was making his address. It was just too far, and too crowded. We filmed and talked to people, and then made our way to the hotel.

These days communication is instant and everyone expects the story without delay, but the Iranian government doesn’t want this story out. They have blocked mobile phones and text messaging. The internet slows to a crawl in the evenings. We edited our piece, but technical problems meant my voice-over did not arrive in London. But we got the pictures and words out, even if someone in London had to voice what I said.

Just before we went on air, we manged to obtain – and I won’t say how – pictures of a terrible scene of violence which had just occurred as dusk fell. People – who knows if they were real protesters or agents provocateurs – attacked a base of the basiij, the paramilitary shock troops of the Revolution. They set fire to the place shouting “You killed our brothers, now we’ll kill you.” People hate the basiij, and this assault was a shocking manifestation of that. The basiij shot into the air and then into the crowd. A man fell, dead; his body was pulled away.

As I write this morning, I have no idea what today will bring. The violence which broke out at the end of the day was a terrible contrast with the peaceful protest we had seen earlier. I don’t know how many died, but certainly now people are being killed and injured.

The protesters say they will come out on the streets again today. Who knows what will happen now?