THE GENTEEL city of Esfahan, with its exquisite blue-tiled mosques and numerous rose gardens, is not accustomed to the kind of ugly scenes that have taken place in recent days.
Anger over last Friday’s disputed presidential election, which handed a massive victory to the incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has brought thousands on to Esfahan’s historic boulevards in protest, just as in Tehran and several other cities across Iran.
Just as hundreds of thousands of Tehranis were pouring onto the streets of the capital on Monday in support of Mir Hussein Mousavi, the man they believe won the election, Hamid, a 30-year-old merchant, joined his friends to protest in Esfahan.
“The people came quietly at first, but then more and more joined us,” he said yesterday. “When the police moved in, I saw them beating protesters and using tear gas. I was lucky to get away. I have never seen anything like this before in Iran.”
Hamid spoke as he watched Iranian state TV report on the latest developments in what has become the most serious turmoil the country has faced since the 1979 revolution which brought the Islamic Republic into being.
He wagged his finger at the TV as a white-turbanned cleric and then an MP invoked the memory of Ayatollah Khomeini to stress the importance of law and order. Their interviews were juxtaposed with footage of burning cars and buses on the streets of Tehran.
“How can they talk about the law when such a big lie is being committed?” asked Hamid. “If the vote count was true, people would not be coming to the streets to protest.”
According to official figures announced at the weekend, Ahmadinejad polled 68 per cent of the vote in Esfahan province. Mousavi was said to have won 28 per cent.
“That is nonsense,” argued Hamid. “In the week before the election, everyone I met in Esfahan said they were with Mousavi, so how is it possible that Ahmadinejad won by so much?”
Rumours flew around Esfahan yesterday as to the nature and extent of the clashes that have taken place between pro-Mousavi protesters and security forces in the city in recent days.
One man told me a fuel station had been set ablaze. Another said several shops and businesses had been damaged during the riots.
There was talk of dozens of students being arrested. One woman whispered that she heard people had been killed.
Similar rumours have swirled in Tehran and other cities since the first demonstrations took place on Saturday. There are unsubstantiated reports alleging far more deaths than the seven confirmed by state radio yesterday.
In Esfahan’s main bazaar, the mood was anxious. Men gathered around radios and TV sets to hear updates on the situation in Tehran and other parts of the country.
One man in his 50s, who asked not to be named, said he was resigned to the result despite the fact he had voted for Mousavi.
“I don’t believe in taking to the streets and I’m not as angry as my sons and daughters who also voted for Mousavi,” he said.
“I think even if they do a recount, Ahmadinejad would still win but not by such a wide margin.”
Yesterday evening the sun set on a tense Esfahan. There were reports of pro-Mousavi crowds gathering in certain districts of the city.
Knots of riot police stood along Chahar Bagh Abbasi Street, Esfahan’s main thoroughfare.
Thousands of people waving Iranian flags and posters of a smiling Ahmadinejad gathered around the 17th-century arches of the nearby Si-o-Seh bridge. A man yelled pro-Ahmadinejad slogans into a loudspeaker and, in between, the crowd shouted “Allahu Akbar”. On the sidelines stood bearded members of the basij, Iran’s volunteer pro-government milita, in plain clothes. They carried truncheons, wooden sticks and metal chains. One man appeared to be carrying a long knife in a sheath attached to his belt.
At one stage, a young woman screamed and broke away from the fringes of the gathering.
Someone had pulled her headscarf right back, exposing her hair, and she struggled to rearrange it. The ribbon she had tied around her wrist was green – the colour that has become synonymous with Mousavi’s election campaign – and her friends comforted her as they hurried off.
Another young woman approached me. “You should leave this part of the city now,” she said. “It is too dangerous.”