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Iranians speak out on political conflict

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Media restrictions make it difficult for Iranians to voice their opinion about the country’s current political turmoil. But the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse travelled to the Iran-Iraq border, where he found some Iranians who were surprisingly outspoken. Listen

Iran protests

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LAURA LYNCH: I’m Laura Lynch, and this is The World, a co-production of the BBC World Service, PRI and WGBH Boston. Iran’s disputed presidential election were held over a month ago. And the street protests by opposition supporters that followed seem to have stopped for now, but the dispute over the vote’s outcome is still simmering, and tensions could be high tomorrow. That’s when opposition candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi plans to attend Friday prayers at Tehran University. That same venue has been used by government supporters in recent weeks to intimidate the opposition. Finding out what ordinary Iranians think of the political crisis isn’t easy these days. Journalists in Iran face tough reporting restrictions. But the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse found a place where he could speak to Iranians, the border crossing between Iran and IRAQ. Gabriel, where exactly were you at the border today?

GABRIEL GATEHOUSE: This was a border crossing called Bashmah [PH], which means boot in Persian, I understand. A kind of appropriate for a place where people cross backwards and forwards. This is a part of northern Iraq that’s Iraqi Kurdistan, this autonomous region. And could straddle the border across Iran, Iraq in that area. At the crossing itself, there’s huge billboard on Iranian side with a picture of the two Ayatollahs, Ayatollah Khomeini, the father of the Islamic revolution, and his successor in the current incumbent supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. Now, the landscape itself is hilly, studded with trees, which I have to tell you, is quite a relief after the flat deserts of Baghdad and its surroundings.

LAURA LYNCH: So, tell me about what kinds of Iranians you were meeting there at the border then.

GABRIEL GATEHOUSE: Well most of the traffic across the border seemed to be coming in one direction from Iran to Iraq. Now, these people were truckers, or traders, small business men bringing over cosmetics, shampoos, that kind of thing, as well as just Kurdish Iranian families coming over to visit relative on the other side. Not everyone was very keen to speak to us, there seemed to be a quite a lot of fear amongst the Iranians coming over, they believe that their own police were spying on them, even this side of the border, on the Iraqi side of the border. But I did manage to find one very outspoken man, his name is Hadi [PH]. He was from a small town, not far from the border. He was one of those small traders. And he said he’d voted for Mousavi, the man who eventually lost that election. But he believed that this election was stolen from him. Now here’s what he had to say to me, and I have to say, I was quite surprised by how outspoken he was, just yards from the Iranian frontier.

HADI: They say that [INDISCERNIBLE] we believe that it will change. [INDISCERNIBLE]

GABRIEL GATEHOUSE: Do they believe the result is true?

HADI: [INDISCERNIBLE]

GABRIEL GATEHOUSE: So that was Hadi speaking to me through an interpreter, and judging by the reaction of most of the other people that I tried to speak to, some of whom had almost run away from the microphone when it would come out. I was really quite amazed by how hard he went in on the regime on Mr. Ahmadinejad calling it a coup d’etat. This is unusual stuff for Iran.

LAURA LYNCH: Does that mean there was no one willing to speak to you who was actually a supporter of Ahmadinejad?

GABRIEL GATEHOUSE: I spoke to one of the truckers who’d just coming to the end of his journey bringing a whole bunch of rice from Pakistan to Iraq. And he said, “No, I voted for Ahmadinejad. I was pleased with the outcome.” I said, “Why did you vote for Ahmadinejad?” He said, “Ahmadinejad is the man who looks after poor people.” He said, “He helped me to buy a truck for a cheap price.” And I don’t think he meant personally, but I think probably he was referring to some of Ahmadinejad’s policies and the fact that he is fairly popular amongst certain sections of the rural population in Iran. Now, one thing that everyone seemed to agree on though, whether they were supporters of Ahmadinejad or Mousavi. They all seemed to agree that the street protest that we had seen are most definitely over for the moment.

LAURA LYNCH: The BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse reporting from Bashmah, Iraq. Thanks for the update.

GABRIEL GATEHOUSE: My pleasure.

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