Iran: you don't need to be a protester to get hit

TEHRAN, IRAN – Whenever the riot police charge, waving their batons, with their shields to the fore, people run down the streets to escape.

The black-clad riot squad move in phalanxes on motor-bikes, riding up on the pavements, swiping at passers-by. You don’t have to be a protestor to get hit.

On Sunday morning, we ended up running with a crowd and hiding in a stairwell. A young man invited us upstairs to his office.

Like many Iranians I’ve met in the last few days, he was fed up of the old order, and had voted for Mir Hossein Mousavi, the alternative candidate. But he wasn’t amongst the youths on the streets, throwing stones at the police, because he had no hope that it would bring change.

“There’s no leadership,” he said. “Mr Mousavi will not lead us because those who control the country are more powerful than him. Everything is in the hands of the Supreme Leader.”

Other journalists are also getting help from unexpected quarters. One reporter told me how a young woman had taken him home so he could use her internet. “I don’t think her mother was very impressed,” he said. “I mean, what did she say? Hey, Mum, I met this foreign guy at the riot. Mind if he comes in?”

In the afternoon, hundreds of thousands turned out for the rally in support of President Ahamdinejad. A young man saw us trying to make our way through the hordes to find a high point from which to film and took it upon himself to help.

He couldn’t speak English but he parted the crowds for us and indicated we should follow.

I assumed he was an Ahmadinejad supporter, because he was at the rally and carrying the national flag, which the president’s campaign appropriated for themselves.

When the cameraman was filming, our new friend suddenly indicated that I should look at his mobile phone. A picture flashed up. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Then another. It was the Shah and his wife, an official portrait from back in the 1970s, before the Revolution.

If the authorities knew he was carrying such pictures, he would surely get into trouble. But it is one of the strange things about critical events like this, when fear and excitement mingle, that people suddenly trust foreigners and let them know things they might keep from their best friend.