Pedestrian

The following is a translation of events as described by a “student”, a fellow participant of the UK Embassy raid in Tehran as told to snn.ir, a state media outlet.

What seems clear to me is that the in-fighting between the Iranian fascist uber-elite is a cause of this mess, but I wouldn’t doubt that there were genuine, imbecilic people there angry at the recent round of sanctions imposed on Iran by the British government. Once again, authentic anger at IsraelEUS is being used and abused to take us down a spiral of possible war (and more sanctions, at the least).

Somebody tell this guy: maybe you don’t have that much time to lock doors and windows when you are fleeing?

With Thanks to Naj @ Neo-Resistance for providing the link to the original article.

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There were notices about a religious ceremony in front of the embassy at our school.

I got there around 3:30, and the ceremony had started an hour before, around 2:30. Already, people were on the walls of the embassy holding Ashura flags [Yesterday marked the beginning of the month of Ashura, a month of mourning in the Shi'a calendar].

It appeared as if some people had entered the embassy beforehand, had brought down the flag of the UK and had replaced it with an Iranian flag.

It appeared that people were quite distraught with the actions of the British [government], and that’s why they had stormed inside. I tried and succeeded to get in with the second round of protesters storming the embassy.

When we entered, not much was going on except for 3 computers that had been thrown to the ground from the windows.

The computer hard drives were missing, someone had taken them before we got inside.

After that, for about half an hour nothing much was going on. We could hear people chanting against the British from outside. About 60 people left the embassy, but 150 to 300 remained inside.

Once the sunset call to prayer [azan] was heard, protesters outside the embassy were more riled up than before, and about 1700 to 2000 people entered. After that, everything became chaotic.

From inside the embassy this is what we saw: a building surrounded by gates, on the right side of the main entrance. A church to the left. There were very elaborate buildings and an exceptional library which held odd objects, like diving gear and … Alcohol was abundant there and in the rooms and in the kitchens … If you want to picture it, try to imagine Sa’dabad Palace [The late Shah's residence which has since been turned into a museum] with more modern equipment. The kitchens were extremely elaborate, there was a room filled with clothes, and refrigerators abundant with all sorts of food, including Haram food, like Haram meat [pork, etc]. There was a small swimming pool at the back of the library building.

Once we exited the private courtyard, we got to the office buildings to our right, filled with clothing and food. It was obvious that that location was the joint administrative work area for the British and Iranian staff. The area was simple but well equipped.

In all the rooms of the office buildings, there were several telephones and walkie-talkies. Even the plumbing and electric sockets were European, and behind these office buildings was a workshop and a repair shop.

The office buildings and residential areas were connected with a wall. The students that had earlier entered had done nothing to the residential area, except for breaking a few bottles of alcohol, but when the chaos started and the masses entered, the destruction began.

[Just today, diplomats from Turkey, Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, etc visited the residential areas and expressed their shock at what they had seen: torn paintings, broken computer equipment everywhere, food splattered all over carpets, writings on the walls, etc]

The students were trying to protect the embassy, but it appeared that there were many people there bent on destroying everything.

We couldn’t tell who these people were or what party they belonged to, but they were obviously not students. Some were just there to throw things and create chaos, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Old Colonial Master [UK] had sent them to create a media spectacle.

What was very surprising was that the doors of all the rooms, houses and cars were left open. In such a tight security environment, this seemed very odd and unnatural.

Finally, around 7:40, Commander Radan [Tehran's deputy police chief] entered the embassy and gave an ultimatum to those inside. Most people left after the ultimatum, but those who refused were dragged out.

The police’s reaction before Radan’s appearance was forceful but polite but afterwards, some [protesters] were beaten and some even had to be taken to the hospital.