New Year’s Day 13 – No. 10
NCRI – Protest acts by the people of Tehran on the 13th day of the Iranian New Year holidays took place across the capital on Friday despite the regime’s suppressive measures. Through intimidations and threats, which included acknowledgments of some of these suppressive actions, regime officials tried to intensify the atmosphere of terror and fear and prevent people from staging protests against the clerical regime.
One of the officials of Tehran’s State Security Forces (SSF), Ashouri, admitted to the presence of “patrolling vehicles and bikes and secret and unidentifiable patrols in 300 locations in Tehran,” including “all parks, recreation centers, green spaces and streets in the Greater Tehran.” Among other SSF measures on the 13th day of the Iranian New Year, he also alluded to the “stationing of SSF employees, mobile police tents, foot patrols of SSF and the [paramilitary] Bassij.”
The Head of Traffic Police, Colonel Saeed Esmaili, also took a comical stab at intimidating people, saying, “Those vehicles that place grass ornaments [used during Nowrouz celebrations] on their vehicles will be fined by the police.”
Among the other suppressive tactics of the regime were the presence of a large number of intelligence and plainclothes agents especially in parks, as well as the extensive and unprecedented number of check points and police posts.
The regime’s state-run radio and TV building was turned into a military base in virtue of the high concentration of suppressive forces. Mellat Park, which is close to the building, was surrounded by 6 buses, 10 minivans, dozens of anti-riot guards on motorbikes and SSF agents. Dozens more moved around the park in visible formation in order to instill fear and terrorize the civilian population.
Helicopters hovered over the city carrying SSF commanders, who kept an eye on the events below.
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
April 3, 2010