Shah Hosein Almasi carried the bleeding body of his son Soheil in his arms. The boy, 17, had been shot twice in the chest, but was still alive.
It was the afternoon of Friday, January 9 in the southern Iranian city of Marvdasht, around 12km from the heritage site of Persepolis, one of the finest sites of ancient Iran.
Large anti-government protests had already been expanding across the country. Thousands of people had been killed the previous night in a bloody crackdown by pro-government security forces on the demonstrators. Authorities had cut off the internet and phone lines.
“I went to him [Soheil] myself, I carried him along with his uncle,” Shah Hosein said in a voice note passed to The National by a relative abroad. “I told him, ‘Didn't I tell you to pull back?’ Soheil said, ‘Dad, if you're going to be a lion, it's better you be killed than to be a mouse and hide in a hole.’”
He did not live beyond that weekend. The National received photos of Soheil’s bloodied body, which were too graphic to publish, showing a large wound bound with stitches across the left side of his chest.
“The bullet that had struck his chest unfortunately killed him,” Shah Hosein said. “The one that hit his heart had pierced his heart membrane. [The doctor], God bless him, tried very hard. But he couldn't save him.”
Soheil was headstrong and angry about the state of his country. Still a teenager, he worked as a barber to bring in some money. He had joined in with previous protests in the hope of effecting change in his country, his father said.
Father of Soheil
Iran has been ruled by a clerical leadership since a revolution in 1979 that ousted the previous monarchy.
That government, currently overseen by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, imposes strict curbs on social and political freedom, opposed by many Iranian citizens. With external sanctions imposed by the UN, US and others on Iran, as well as internal corruption, the leadership has overseen a nosediving economy, lowering ordinary Iranians’ living standards drastically.
“The freedom in his mind was to be a very normal human in a very normal country, not with lots of restrictions,” Soheil’s cousin Saeed Ranjbar, who lives in the UK, told The National in an interview.
The family was able to retrieve his body from hospital only after paying a bribe to members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Iran’s most powerful military force, Saeed said. “They [the IRGC] were looking for everyone. They did not take it [Soheil’s body] out of the hospital, but they shut the door and said they needed to ‘do something’”, Saeed said.
Other families of protesters have reported similar experiences, including coming under pressure from authorities to document false causes of death.
Scepticism over nuclear talks
Real change for Iranians will not come about through nuclear negotiations between Washington and Tehran, because the regime will not enter into any agreement that threatens its ideology, Saeed believes. A third round of talks mediated by Oman took place in Geneva on Thursday, as the US and Iran attempt to hammer out a deal for limitations on Tehran’s nuclear programme in exchange for sanctions relief.
“Nothing will happen in the talks,” Saeed said. “The brutal regime sticks to its ideology. They do not give up. Imagine if tomorrow the supreme leader of Iran said, ‘OK, I accept the deal.’ What will happen? They lose everything. I promise you, nothing will happen.”
Tehran denies any ambition of creating an atomic bomb, but insists on retaining some nuclear enrichment capability and says it will not negotiate over its ballistic missile programme or support for regional militant groups in Lebanon, Yemen and elsewhere. Before departing Iran for the talks, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said there was a “historic opportunity to strike an unprecedented agreement” and said a deal was reachable but only if diplomacy is given priority”.
If diplomacy fails, US President Donald Trump has threatened to carry out military strikes on Iran and said “bad things” will happen if no deal is reached. The US has already carried out the largest deployment of airpower to the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, according to an assessment by the International Crisis Group think tank, in apparent posturing to attempt to obtain concessions during negotiations with Tehran.
Given the brutal crackdown on protests last month, many Iranians already feel like they are at war, said Saeed.
The US-based Human Rights Activists group has confirmed more than 7,000 people were killed during last month’s protests in Iran and is working to confirm another 11,700 cases. Tens of thousands more were arrested for participating and some face a death sentence for doing so.
Many people inside Iran believe stronger international action is needed, including military support, “so the Iranian people are not facing the regime’s weapons alone”, Saeed said. “Life and businesses in Iran right now have become very unstable. People feel tired, frustrated and they are left alone against the heavily armed system.”
Other Iranians inside and outside the country have said they oppose the idea of US military strikes on the country. That is either because they support the current government, or they oppose the regime but also have deep concerns about what system could replace it.
Off the streets, protests continue
Despite the bloody crackdown on protesters, Iranians have continued to display opposition to their government more prominently than at almost any time in the past. That points to the depth of their grievances and the lack of any real change that might dampen their vocal anger.
That opposition has partly been on display during memorial services held across Iran for dead protesters over the past week.
Known as a “chehelom”, the service marks 40 days since a person died and is an important part of Iranian culture.
Many families, including Soheil’s, snubbed traditional mourning rituals in favour of loud singing, dancing, clapping and chanting, making graveyards new spaces for protest.
“They think organically that this type of resistance looks like singing songs, putting flowers on the cars, distributing sweets and many other things, are things that the government doesn't want,” Saeed said of the mourners turned demonstrators. “They do something against the government. It looks like a fight with the government.”
Mourners came under pressure from security forces, who were present at chehelom services and used drones to survey them, Saeed said.
“There were lots of security around them, and drones,” he said. “One of my close friends said people did not care about their troops, about the security. They didn't. They were chanting so much against the IRGC, too. They support the crown prince Palavi and his grandfather.”
Saeed is among those Iranians who support a return of Iran’s exiled crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, to oversee a transition from the Islamic Republic. Activists inside the country have frequently shouted pro-Pahlavi slogans and demanded his return, although others have voiced caution over the idea of him doing so.
Students have over the past week also renewed their protests, which have so far remained confined to campuses but have the potential to spread. In an apparent sign of attempts to stymie them, the head of Iran’s judiciary Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on Wednesday that he had written to the Minister of Science demanding he hand over the names of people who had “committed crimes”. If that request went unanswered, the judiciary “will be forced to identify and take action, and naturally the cost will increase”, Mr Mohseni Ejei wrote in a message on X.
Students have burnt the national flag, which they associate with the Islamic Republic’s rule, and chanted against its clerical leadership, occasionally clashing on campus with IRGC paramilitaries known as the Basij.
Students’ willingness to come out and protest despite the dangers is a sign that a threshold of fear has been broken, Saeed said.
“No one can be silenced, especially in Iran.”
