The Basijis have smashed and closed cafés where activists used to congregate. In the first days of protest, many security people wore masks to hide their identities. It has circulated text messages urging informers to report dissident activity.įear has punctured the protesters’ initial euphoria. The IRGC is also using its intelligence agencies to raid homes of suspected activists, seize their phones and make arrests. Many carry pistols and, increasingly often, machineguns. Others wear black or battle dress and patrol on motorbikes. Unlike the police, they answer to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps ( IRGC), the ayatollahs’ praetorian guard. With the interior ministry’s forces humiliated, the ayatollahs have increasingly turned to the Basij. In several towns the police fled under a hail of stones. Some protesters dragged policemen from their ranks and kicked them. But that only brought out men to defend the women. As more headscarves came off, they resorted first to tasers and then water cannon, tear gas and sometimes air rifles. When the protests began on September 16th, the regime pulled back its morality squads and let the police take over.
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