From Iran, Hugh sent this: "Teheran before the protests
I can't show you photos of the riots in Teheran on Saturday. I was filming a crowd of people protesting that the election had been rigged. They were supporters of the main reformist rival to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mir Huseyn Moussavi. They chanted: "The election is not true". Suddenly, militia on BMX-style motorbikes charged at the crowd.
We ran. I filmed backwards over my shoulder. We outran the motorbike militia, down an alley and onto a main street. They couldn't follow because of a common feature of Teheran alleyways - steel hoops in the ground...... to stop motorbikes from driving through. But my camera had been knocked out of my hand, into a ditch full of water. I got it back, and when it's dried out the images may be interesting.
Meanwhile, here are some shots of election day itself:
It all began peacefully. Family atmosphere, quiet queueing at a mosque in the Ahmadinejad heartland at Rey in south Teheran.
And here's a mosque polling station in north Teheran, where the overwhelming majority of people I spoke to said they were supporting Moussavi:
But at both polling stations, there was no voting privacy. I could see exactly who these people were voting for...and so could everyone else:
And the ballot procedure was confusing. Voters had to fill in the name of the candidate and the candidate's code number. The code number was not the number next to their name on the main list, it was a different, unrelated number, on a separate list (lower centre):
Here's a closer look up of that second list.
There are two numbers for each candidate; the code number on the left and the list number on the right. The code number for Ahmadinejad (44) is suspiciously similar to the list number for Moussavi (4) - leading at the very least to ambiguity. And many people here simply do not believe Ahmadinejad genuinely polled more than sixty-percent of the ballot.
Innocent photo of bread queue in Rey. Two minutes later a woman nearby reported me to the police for taking the photograph and for recording inter views with people standing in the queue. I had to show the police my Iranian press pass, and a letter specifying which parts of the country I was allowed to work in. This area was on the list.
Policeman happy. But all day, whenever I used my microphone, camera or portable satellite dish, I was constantly stopped or delayed by police and officials demanding to see my 'permissions'. It wears you down. I guess that's the intention.
And now the result:
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