Young people fight against corruption centers in Shahroud

Translated by M. B. Khoshnevisan

2022-1-25

[Traveling to Aliabad and meeting with Ayatollah Madani] We along with the friends decided to step up our activities and make our protests more public about the city's corruption. During the operation, we were supposed to target several specific places, including two movie theaters in the city called Iran and Moulin Rouge, and at least break their windows, and if we could, set them on fire. This was the plan of religious guy but later, other currents were added to us and this cause the initial movement to deviate from its course to some extent. It was decided that the friends gathered a crowd of about sixty, seventy. The crowd were supposed to start protesting early in the morning from one part of the city and then attack the two movie theatres and the Armenian Brown's wine shop. We got some wood and other things to use in case of clashes with the police. Then we found out that a number of the guys who were inclined to the Mujahedin had suspected our move, and on the same night that the operation was to take place in the morning, they came and offered to cooperate with us. We accepted and told them that you could also help. On the whole, we concluded that these forces and their joining to us did not create any problem. We were supposed to gather and start the operation in Forughi Street in front of Ferdowsi School beside Javad al'A'emmeh Mosque early in the morning before six AM and everybody should be present there before six AM with special hats that only the eyes were visible and the faces hidden. The next morning, some had worn hats, but some who did not have hats, used paper fruit bags and only pierced the place of the eyes so that they could see. The Mujahedin-e Khalq had also prepared a large number of explosives and put them into the street's stream, and this was unexpected for us. We did not expect that the plan led to this. It was supposed that exactly at six o'clock, I whistle and everyone would move towards a few specific goals. As soon as I blew the whistle, someone shouted: Police. The people fled. We also went into the alleys. We saw from a distance that the police were besieging there and chasing some people. A number of the participants in the demonstration were the students of the Mine School in Shahroud and did not know well the alleyways of the city. Unfortunately, they were caught by the police, and some of them lost consciousness by the police baton, and some of them were arrested and sentenced to four months and six months or more in prison. The reason for the disclosure was that the locals had apparently become sensitive when they had seen some people with strange faces and hats and in unusual clothes at that time of the day, and had informed the police. Finally, an unrest happened and we did not achieve our goals except that the group was torn apart, and some were detained and imprisoned. The event happened in 1355 (1976) and I was about 22.

Source: Sahebi, Mohammad Javad, In the Struggle for Politics and Culture (Memoirs of Mohammad Javad Sahebi), compiled by Hojjatollah Alimohammadi, The Artistic Cultural Institute and Publications of the Islamic Revolution Document Center, 1393 (2014), pp. 70-71