Free Then They Came For Me by Maziar Bahari, Aimee Molloy Page B

knew that he had been threatened several times by the Guards and that its leaders were trying to find any excuse to put him behind bars. I climbed into Mr. Roosta’s car and decided to call Amir later; I had work to do. My first visit was to polling stations in the Qeytariyeh area, in north Tehran, where Mousavi’s campaign headquarters was located. Hundreds of people waited in line outside of every venue. I found the same thing at the polling stations in Robat Karim and other southern suburbs. In some places, people had to wait more than two hours for their turn to vote. Many of the people I spoke with were voting for the first time in their lives. They were excited and impatient and passed the time in heated political discussions.
    Visitors to Iran are often surprised to find that, unlike in most Middle Eastern dictatorships, there are not that many uniformed policemen or army officers in Iranian cities. That is true until you take out your video camera or try to interview people—then you are surrounded within a few minutes by undercover and uniformed police.
    I managed to interview just two or three people at each of the first five polling stations before I was asked to leave by security agents in civilian clothes. They never introduced themselves, but I later learned that they reported to the Ministry of Intelligence. I’d expected that it would be like this throughout the day, so I wasn’t surprised when a uniformed policeman hastily dismounting a motorcycle stopped me as I left a polling station on Gisha Street, in west Tehran, where I’d just cast my vote for Mousavi.
    Apparently, an undercover agent at the station had called the police.
    “Where are you from?” he asked.
    From the single-striped badge on his dark green jacket, which he had awkwardly tucked into his trousers, I gathered that he was a second lieutenant in the Tehran police force. Unlike the Revolutionary Guards and the Basij, the police are less indoctrinated, and concerned mostly with matters of general security.
    The second lieutenant’s thin mustache and stubble were covered with sweat, as if he had rushed to the station in a hurry. I showed him my press card and said I was a reporter and cameraman for
Newsweek
magazine and its website. He called his superior officer on his two-way radio receiver. “Sir, there’s a man who interviews people for New Zealand.”
    “Newsweek,”
I corrected him.
    “Shut up!” he yelled, pushing me around and telling me to face the wall. “He is
interviewing
people!” He said the word “interviewing” as if it were a capital crime. “Should I arrest him?”
    This was not the first time I had been stopped by a policeman. Usually when it happened, they would call someone from Ershad and I would be let go within minutes or, much more rarely, a few hours. As any journalist in Iran can attest to, 80 percent of your time is spent dealing with officials, and only 20 percent working. I had long ago accepted this reality, so I faced the wall obediently and waited for the verdict.
    “I don’t know, sir,” I heard him say. “He looks Iranian, but he says from New Zealand.” He came closer to me. “Hey, you! Do you speak Farsi?”
    “Yes, sir. I do,” I replied politely. “I’m an Iranian citizen. I just voted.”
    “Come here, Mr. Colonel wants to talk to you,” he said curtly.
    “Hello, sir. This is Maziar Bahari from
Newsweek
,” I began. “My accreditation was issued by Ershad. I came here to conduct interviews about the election, but I was asked to leave. I was doing exactly that when the officer stopped me.”
    Mr. Colonel explained that because of security threats, police officers were being more vigilant that day. The colonel then apologized for the inconvenience and asked me to pass the walkie-talkie to the policeman.
    “Yes, sir! Should I arrest him, sir?” the second lieutenant asked eagerly. He looked uncomfortable with his boss’s reply and turned his back to me. “Yes, sir!” He