Firsthand reports from contributors inside Iran
Another disaster, more Iranians killed, no one held accountable, the media gagged: the port blast on Iran’s Persian Gulf coast was news and not news at the same time.
The explosion struck Bandar Abbas, one of Iran’s most vital trade arteries. It cloaked the city in toxic fumes. Schools and government offices were shut, residents were told to stay home and wear masks. Yet officials tried to downplay the severity.
Soon speculations and gossip rivered, as is the case usually, to fill the vacuum left by the state’s evasion.
“You won’t get shock waves 5km away if the blasted containers had sugar or wheat,” my friend Navid, an English instructor, told me shortly after the news came in.
“It has to be explosives,” he posited, “weapons hidden among civilian cargo to protect it from attacks. They don’t care about the human cost.”
Most casualties were port workers, ensuring the flow of goods in and out of the country. As the numbers rose, public fury deepened.
Unofficial accounts pointed to sodium perchlorate and other compounds imported from China for Iran’s missile program. Authorities denied any such link, and one state news report quoting customs officials suggesting improper storage practices was quietly deleted hours later.
The belief that such cargo may have been stored without workers’ knowledge, possibly to shield it from foreign attack, has inflamed a population fed up with incompetence and injustice.
“Either it’s criminal negligence or a deliberate act. And I’m not sure which is worse,” says Amin, who works for a logistics company. “Some say it was Israel, though they denied it instead of their customary silence. But even if it was an Israeli operation, I’d still blame those who hid military cargo among commercial goods.”
Amin is 47, the same age as the Islamic Republic, he reminds me. “My whole life is gone, wasted, under this brutish bunch.”
The frustration, the rage, in Amin’s voice is perhaps the most common emotion I see around me these days. And those in power appear mostly indifferent or oblivious. And I’m not sure which is worse–to borrow Amin’s words.
“Did you see the transport minister on TV,” my doctor’s secretary, jumps at me before I can barely say hello. “Oh my God, she sounded like a game show host, smiling that ‘all is fine’ while the port was in flames and people were going crazy not knowing what had happened to their loved ones.”
She is of the talkative type I would ignore if I weren't researching for a story.
“And then that half-wit (president) Pezeshkian, oh my God, he pays a visit to bed-bound, shell-shocked victims and jokes about walking out of the hospital. At least pretend you care,” she added.
Pezeshkian and his transport minister Farzaneh Sadeq are under fire. The latter has a motion of impeachment waiting for her in the parliament. She likely knew nothing about the containers. As the only female minister, she’s the perfect scapegoat, the “shortest wall” to knock down as we say in Persian.
The only ones held ‘accountable’ here are those trying to shed light on a tragedy. Reporters on the scene have been threatened and silenced. Papers in Tehran have been gently reminded to tow the official line.
“Our editors have received the infamous call,” says Elham, a journalist at a moderate daily. “And they relay the message to us: don’t engage in ‘illegal’ activity. God knows what that even means. We just want to report what we find out.”
After ten days, the port flames are gone. But the fire burning in us—the one lit by the Islamic Republic’s contempt for truth and life—shows no sign of dying down.
