Published images show that on Tuesday evening, the tables and garden beds in front of cafés on Tehran’s Sanaa Street were demolished without prior notice. The action followed the closure (pounding) of a number of cafés on this street.

Sanaa Street had become one of the gathering spots for city residents; a place where many people would sit on curbs and the edges of garden beds, eat, and sometimes street music would also be performed there. The destruction of these spaces appears to have limited the possibility of this kind of gatherings.

At the same time, according to reports, many cafés on this street have also removed their outdoor tables and chairs to prevent potential clashes.

The owner of one of the cafés on Sanaa Street, which was sealed on Tir 29, had previously told Iran International that in recent weeks “strange things” had happened and it seemed that people involved in holding overnight government-organized gatherings consider the cafés in this area to be a “bad fit” in central Tehran.

He also said that in the days leading up to the burial of the body of Ali Khamenei, the slain leader of the Islamic Republic, people in plain clothes, but equipped with radios and weapons, visited his café twice