Tehran’s New Arms Bazaar

“Sales of these plastic [police] batons have been high for seven or eight months now and we’ve sold scores,” reports one of the vendors for military clothing on Imam Khomeini Street at the intersection with Sepah Street. These shops, whose customers were until a few months ago soldiers and young officers, were located in garrisons in Tehran and at the Officers’ College. According to one of the vendors, however, these days the type of customers and what they are looking for has changed. “Since around the month of Khordad and the unrest in Tehran and other cities following the elections, the sale of batons and things of this sort has gone up, and most customers are after these plastic and elastic batons,” he continues.

Perhaps a year ago no one would have believed such a story—that in Tehran, one of the most peaceful capitals in the Middle East (at least on the surface), items used for repression are so easily sold. But ten months ago and after the events following the tenth presidential elections in June 2009 many of the old equations fell apart. A deep societal split has developed in Iran, and particularly in Tehran, between the majority dissidents and minority supporters of the current government that has resulted not only in hopelessness, discouragement and depression of the majority, but has been accompanied by a phenomenon of extensive violence. This violence has results of its own. One of these phenomena is the relative easy access to weaponry—both firearms and knives and batons etc.—in cities, especially Tehran.

Firearms and other weapons mixed

When discussing weapons it is important not forget that there are numerous types of lethal weapons. The most important division of weaponry is between firearms and non-firearms. According to the official description, a firearm can be anything from a type of rifle, pistol and handgun to, in some cases, handmade bombs and hand grenades. Non-firearm weapons are a wider category including even kitchen knives and pocket knives/switchblades, which can also be lethal weapons. The baton and brass knuckles are two well-known weapons that also fit into this category—although, rather than being classed as lethal, they are called assault weapons. According to official Iranian law, carrying any kind weapon—firearm or not—without a permit is considered a crime for which the offender will be sent to prison. Permits for owning a weapon (except for hunting) are limited to the military and some of the country’s police, and are provided by the legal authorities. The owner of a weapon, in particular a firearm, is under normal circumstances, not allowed to use it. Permits for the use of hunting weapons also require approval from the police. The purchase and sale of weapons without a permit is also a crime according to the law and subject to prosecution.

In the first days following the Islamic Revolution when control of some military garrisons was in the hands of the people, weapons from the store rooms were taken home. At the beginning of the Islamic Revolution some civil forces who were responsible for patrolling the cities and had received weapons never returned them to the garrisons. Likewise, some people who had gone to war returned to the city with their weapons. It was around the decade of the 1370s (1990s) that the government set a deadline for the collection of unlicensed weapons. By going door to door a large portion of them were collected. However, it might be fair to say that this was carried out to a larger extent in big cities like Tehran, Shiraz, Isfahan and Mashhad, whereas in smaller cities and especially in border regions compliance was less thorough. In the town of Bam, a large portion of which was destroyed about eight years ago in a violent earthquake, the changing hands of weapons became a normal event because of the lack of security. This is something that today has become just as common in Tehran, in the heart of the capital.

Imam Khomeini Street, Naser Khosrow Street

His wares are spread out on the ground next to a camera shop. He is in his forties, sunburnt and has a harsh scowl. Opposite him on a dirty piece of cloth are all kinds of knives, a few screwdrivers and a Chinese flashlight. Most of his knives are pocket knives/switchblades and hunting knives. I have heard that upon impact with the body knives with serrated blades, if they do not cause death, can result in irreparable damage. I am busy looking at a camera when, from above the street noise I hear the man respond to somebody’s question: “What caliber handgun do you want? At the moment we only have seven.” Involuntarily I turn around and look at him. He’s speaking so normally it’s as if he’s selling someone his flashlight. From their conversation I find out that the price of a seven caliber handgun with a cartridge box is between 400 and 500 thousand Tomans ($400-$500). The price of a handgun that can kill—the price of one, or maybe ten human lives. Once his costumer leaves I try to find out about his business under the pretext of looking at and buying one of his screwdrivers. He’s too harsh to speak freely with. I pick a fairly large knife and ask: “How much?” He takes is from my hand and says brusquely: “You aren’t buying this.” Just as I want to ask why he continues: “This knife isn’t for the kitchen, sister. It’s good for something else.” I want to ask him if a permit is required to sell these knives, when I realize that if a permit was required his wares would have been taken away. He isn’t even the only one here selling lethal weapons. Sayyed Ismail Alley and Gomrok Street are full of vendors who have recently turned to the buying and selling of a new product: firearms.[1] However, talking to these vendors, who also look frightening, is dangerous.

Teenagers, baton in hand

The batons carried along by plainclothes officers in the last few years have become the steady pillar of the suppression of popular protest. These are batons that when they hit a head or face cause extreme pain and bruising and force the victim to run away. In the last ten months, particularly in the month of Tir (mostly the month of July) when the protests were intensifying, the number of vigilante wielding batons sometimes outnumbered the security forces and the riot police. This was the group that was more involved in attacking protesters, and among them could be seen youths, fourteen or fifteen years of age. It is interesting that batons, which are considered to be assault weapons and are supposed to be available to the police, are one of the items so easily bought and sold and these days business is brisk. The exchange takes place, as I mentioned earlier, on Imam Khomeini Street around the Sepah Street intersection (Vali Asr) where they sell military items and clothes.

Another vendor who has a store in the same area tells me about previous baton sales: “Before this we were lucky if we sold one or two of these batons a month. Our customers were young men and occasionally plainclothes officers. But recently the demand for these batons has gone up drastically.” The batons cost between three and seven thousand Tomans ($3-$7). The vendor says: “The three thousand Toman batons ($3) are made of plastic. But the more expensive ones hurt more because they are made of a harder material.” I think of the painful bruise that had, until recently, lingered on my shoulder from the baton of a plainclothes officer on Ashura.[2] I ask: “But these batons are a little different from the batons carried by the police?”

The vendor explains that the batons carried by police and plainclothes officers are made of a harder material: “These are the batons used by the riot police. There are ten different models. There is a type of the elastic ones that upon first impact with the body don’t hurt; but later cause intolerable burning and pain. There’s another model that causes internal damage.” I want to ask him why things that are so bad and dangerous are bought and sold so freely, when three boys 11 to 14 years old enter the store with their schools bags to buy batons. After they had left the vendor explains that there were many more especially after the 16 of Azar[3] and around Ashura. Most costumers are young, 10 to 14 year-old boys, most of whom claim to be part of the school Basij.[4] For a few months they had not come as much but now, in the few days, they have been buying more. One of the boys who is bigger than his friends asks: “You don’t have any electric batons?”

The vendor’s answer is a negative. A permit is required for those. The boy turns to his friends and says: “I’ll have to tell my dad to bring me one. These are child’s play—they don’t hurt.” He hasn’t even begun to hit puberty. Facing him and his friends I ask: “Why do you want to have something so dangerous?” The first boy bristles. “And you are?” he says. “What difference does it make?” I say that I’m curious. He looks at me and leaves the store. One of his friends who seems more timid says: “Muhammad says we need them for the resistance against those causing riots.” “Who are the people causing disorder?” I ask. The third boy in the group who had been silent says very quickly: “The Greens.”[5] “But there hasn’t been any news of them for awhile now,” says the vendor. The two glance outside and the second says quietly: “Muhammad says it’ll be their anniversary in a few days and they’re getting ready to hit the streets again. We have to get ready too.” They leave. I watch them—their leader at the front and the other two following behind. I think of the past Khordad(June), the Khordad (June) that will come again, and the people who might protest again and the batons that might be brought down on the bodies of those people by teenagers like those three.