Forced to stop demonstrating by police brutality, a Tehran nurse called Mojgan has found a new way of expressing her hatred of a regime which, she believes, stole the election from Mir Hossein Mousavi then ruthlessly stifled dissent.

In the privacy of her home she takes all the banknotes from her purse and, with the help of her two children, writes on them “Mousavi” or “Death to the Dictator”. Then she goes out and spends them, using the legal currency of the Islamic Republic to undermine a rotten state.

“The most important thing is to let the Government know we are still here and we won’t give up,” she said.

Its massive street protests crushed by the regime’s deployment of overwhelming force, Iran's Opposition is now embarking on a campaign of civil disobedience of which the nightly chorus of Allahu Akbar — God is greatest — from the roofs and balconies of Iranian cities is only the most obvious manifestation. Other ideas are beginning to catch on, some of them positively witty.

People are buying mobile phone pay-as-you-go cards from secondary servers instead of using the state-run service.

They are boycotting goods advertised on IRIB, the monopoly state broadcaster, or in state-controlled newspapers, and banks controlled by the regime, the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij volunteer militia or any other branch of their repressive Government.

And on Iran’s city streets, collection boxes for government-run charities are filling up with slips of paper bearing Mr Mousavi’s name to show how many votes he really got.

The basiji are hitting back at some forms of protest. They are reportedly lashing out with their batons at cars that drive with their headlights on to show support for Mr Mousavi. They have also been painting red crosses on houses that gave refuge to demonstrators, or where they think people are chanting from rooftops at night, so they can revisit them at their leisure. The Opposition has an answer to that, too. It is encouraging all Iranians to paint red crosses on their houses.

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