Op-Ed Columnist - City of Whispers : Via NYTimes.com .

TEHRAN — This has become the city of whispers. Many of the people I spoke to when I arrived last week are in prison. Stabbings and shootings punctuate the night. Fear rushes down alleys and dead ends. Still the whispering continues.

“Tomorrow, Vanak Square.” Or “Four o’clock, Imam Khomeini Square.” Or “Everyone wear black.”

An election result was announced a week ago that, in the words of the most senior opposition ayatollah, Hossein Ali Montazeri, “no wise person in their right mind can believe.”

Force rammed home the false, but still it did not stick. Switches were flicked to block texting and cell phones. Still the whispering continued.

From a four-year-old boy: “Ahmadi-byebye” — referring to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. From a young woman with a photograph of Mir Hussein Moussavi, the opposition leader whose occasional appearances send jolts of electricity: “Five o’clock, Vali Asr Square.”

The whispering is heard in the throng’s silence.
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