IRAN: Message from Tehran: 'I am scared and worried'

I first met Shahriar when I was writing for my school paper and covering student government. He was in charge of the clubs on campus and could always be relied on for information. His upbeat attitude was contagious, and we quickly became friends.
Shahriar moved to the U.S. from Iran to pursue his bachelor’s degree. His determination has been nothing short of inspirational. When I learned a few days ago that he went back to visit Tehran, I was shocked. Immediately, I emailed to ask how he was doing and what it was like over there.

Here is his unedited account, which he agreed to share with our readers. To protect his safety, the Times is not publishing his full name.

I am scared and worried about this turmoil in Iran.

No body knows what is going to happen, I even believe the top politicians from both sides have the same situation. They may predict based on their analysis but Iranian people are very unpredictable in political views and actions.

midnight chantings are very energetic and a great sign of unity among people and they chant (Allah Akbar) which means The god is great and its the same chant during the past revolution and its not something against the Islamic values of this government.

during the day when I go out it seems that everything is calm but everyone is waiting to see what is gonna happen at night.

The government has a lot of anti riot forces that havent used all of them so far, so if that happens it could create more violence.

I personally did voted for Mousavi not because he was my ideal reformist candidate but I didnt want Ahmadinejad anymore as my country's president.

I am all for reform in Iran and not revolution and violence.

People want a reelection and believe Mousavi should have won. But losing life and any other sacrifice for this goal is not worthy (from my point of view.)

Special forces who are armed civilians (supported by the government) called Bassij is very involved in this situation and they do most of the attacks to demonstrators. They are bunch of of young people brain washed by radical clerics and only listen to the supreme leader. They have bases in every mosque and basically in every neighbourhood, very unified and willing to sacrifice they lives whenever the supreme leader orders?? at least this is what they claim.

getting news about this situation is very hard at this time. so rumors are going around and around.
Internet websites are blocked (but we use anti filter programs and easily pass that) but getting news for example websites that are belong to Mousavi's supporters are not trustworthy as before because of several attacks and hack attempts to these websites. so we should be very careful about the source of our news.

Satellite channels are attacked by the government with sending noises so BBC Persian TV which was a main news source for people is now almost unreachable. SMS service is blocked so people cant inform each other about demonstrations. cell phones also get blocked in certain areas of Tehran during night and evening. local newspapers get censored even for details of their front pages and articles.

calling to the US and UK is almost impossible because they dont want people to contact news agencies and satellite TVs to report about demonstrations. But still this young generation recording and sending out news from Iran. They also united to attack governmental websites and kinda like a cyber war.

Demonstrations are not happening all over Iran and not even all over Tehran (capital city)
Its almost from city center to north (where middle and upper class people live) but that is even a huge number of people (Tehran has around 10 mil citizens.)

I expect a very strong attack and more violence from security forces in short term and for the long term I predict a very police/security controlled atmosphere for Iran. A complete dictatorship maybe like Syria, Egypt and Cuba, specially when I see all these arrests of opposition leaders in Tehran.
I did go to the first huge demonstration called by Mousavi and shocked by the number of people who showed up. HUGE turnout.

On the other side I know that Ahmadinejad and supreme leader also can call for the same size demonstration.

I really dont know if I ever answered ur questions but just tried to express my feeling and concerns. Please let me know if u have any more or specific questions.

Good luck and cheers,

Shahriar

Babylon & Beyond