For weeks we’ve been trying to find people who have fled Iran after being arrested or injured in the demonstrations. It’s been difficult – not because such people do not exist, but because they’re all so scared.
Those who have come to Europe know that if they speak out, their relatives back home are likely to be threatened or worse by the basiij militia and Revolutionary Guard.
Finally, we found two brave young people, whose identities and locations we’re protecting. I’ll just say I met them in a European capital.
A young woman, who I’ll call Maryam, described how during the first day of protest, she was hit in the knee by a rubber bullet and taken to a private hospital.
“It was terrifying. There were 200 people there, all injured. A lot had broken heads, arms, and legs. Some people had been completely paralysed by electric batons.
“There were girls with knife stabs on their face. I saw a woman in her 60s with a deep stab on her arm. Guys with stab wounds all over their back.
“We had seen that the basiij had machetes. The doctors and nurses didn’t ask people’s names at all, they just did whatever to help you.”
She went on to describe how militia tried to break in.
“The basiij actually attacked the hospital. There were people lying down there bleeding and the basiij broke the glass panes in the door. They smashed it and entered the hospital.
“They wanted to beat people up, but the nurses and staff threw them out. I was in a wheelchair and I was thinking, omigod they’re going to kill us, and we’re trapped here! So I was trying to get away on my wheelchair. It was really scary.”
In the protests on the day the Supreme Leader addressed Friday prayers, Maryam was hit on the head with a baton and had to have stitches.
Javad – again, that’s not his real name – had an even more terrifying experience. Monday 15 June, he says, was the worst day of his life.
He and friends went on that day’s huge demonstration which was entirely peaceful until a small crowd gathered outside the basiij headquarters. He says molotov cocktails were being thrown at the building, and when the basiij started to shoot from the roof, a bullet hit his friend.
“He was standing five or six steps in front of me… my clothes were covered in blood. I saw my friend holding his shoulder and when he turned I could see he’d been shot.” At this point in our interview, Javad began to cry.
“When my friend turned to me, I saw his face. I couldn’t move. My brain didn’t work. I was frozen. We heard a second shot and it was in his neck. He fell to the floor. There was blood everywhere. He was my best friend, I knew him for 20 years.”
A few days later Javad he was arrested – to protect his family, I won’t say under what circumstances. He was blindfolded, taken to a building somewhere in Tehran and thrown into a room.
“They start to hit me with batons and cables. They started to slap my face. I said I haven’t done anything, please don’t hit me,” he said.
One man, who he presumed to be a police officer, shoved him onto the floor, face down. Things got worse.
“My face on the floor, he sit behind me. He was touching me and he told me… I don’t want to say that but people have to know what they done… he told me ‘hey pretty boy you haven’t been with anyone so far… I’m going to take care of you’. He was touching me on the back…and one was hitting me on my leg with his shoes.”
Javad was released after convincing the boss of those who had assaulted him that he wasn’t an organiser, just an ordinary young protestor.
Today, more protestors are expected on the streets of Tehran.
“It’s not about election any more,” said Javad. “Now it’s about why are people being killed? Why are people being arrested? Why does the government tell the people you are foreigner? Why is the government killing its own people?”