Iran International
Iranian authorities have led a systematic campaign to silence the families of those killed and executed amid the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement—denying public mourning, arresting relatives and subjecting mourners to threats and intimidation.
From the earliest days after the death of Mahsa Amini in morality police custody three years ago, family memorials and funerals became focal points for renewed protest.
Victims' kin insist that remembrance itself is a form of resistance, and safeguarding the right to mourn is central to winning truth and justice.
In Iran, funerals and anniversaries have long been potent political tools. They gather people across social and geographic divides, create moments of public memory and sustain narratives of grievance and solidarity.
The 2022–23 protests frequently reignited during burials and 40-day mourning periods. Since then, authorities have continued to dismantle these anniversary rituals through arrests, intimidation, legal harassment and tight security controls at cemeteries where the victims are buried.
Families who refuse to forget
Despite these pressures, families persist. They gather at cemeteries, share photos and videos on social media, and hold private ceremonies to honor their loved ones. Many celebrate birthdays and New Year holidays at graves, bringing cakes, flowers, and posting images online as quiet acts of resistance.
Like previous years, Mahsa Amini’s father, Amjad Amini, published a defiant message on September 14 in remembrance of his daughter on Instagram.
“The memory and demand for justice for Mahsa and the other slain protesters will never be forgotten,” he wrote.
Menaced for mourning
The case of Mashallah Karami demonstrates the lengths to which the state will go to scotch remembrances. His son, Mohammad-Mehdi Karami, along with co-defendant Mohammad Hosseini, was executed in January 2023 for alleged involvement in the death of a Basij militia member in Karaj in central Iran. They denied the charges.
Karami’s father, a street vendor who campaigned relentlessly for his son and Hosseini, was arrested in August 2023 during a security raid. Authorities froze the family’s bank accounts and repeatedly destroyed plaques commemorating the men.
He now serves an eight-year and ten months sentence in prison on fabricated charges of money laundering and obtaining property through illegitimate means, on top of fines and asset confiscations. His appeals for a retrial were rejected by the Supreme Court this month.
Similarly, Mohammad Javad Zahedi, 20, from Sari in northern Iran, was shot dead in September 2022 while on his way to a pharmacy, his body showing close to a hundred pellet wounds.
His mother, Mahsa Yazdani, launched a social media campaign demanding justice but was arrested ahead of the first anniversary of his death.
She was sentenced to 13 years in prison, including a mandatory five-year term, on charges of insulting sacred values and inciting people to disrupt national security, insulting the Supreme Leader and propaganda against the system.
Her sentence was later commuted to home detention with an electronic ankle bracelet, and she was finally released in March after serving two years.
Lawyers in the dock
Legal defenders of these families have also faced persecution.
Saleh Nikbakht, winner of the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize in 2023, who represented Mahsa Amini’s family, was sentenced to one year in prison for interviews with Persian-language media outside Iran and cooperation with hostile states.
Another lawyer, Khosrow Alikordi, was likewise sentenced to one year in prison for propaganda in favor of opposition groups. He represented the prosecuted members of Abolfazl Adinehzadeh’s family.
Adinehzadeh, a seventeen-year-old student, was shot with over 70 pellets in Mashhad during the protests.
Several of his family members, including his father and sister were charged with propaganda against the system. They had been detained at his gravesite on the first anniversary of his death.
Beyond Mahsa Amini — the most internationally recognized martyr for the cause — the names of Nika Shakarami, Hadis Najafi, Sarina Esmailzadeh, Mohsen Shekari, Mohammad Hosseini and others have been engraved in the collective memory of Iranians who remember them affectionately by their first names.
Each represented a different facet of society: women demanding autonomy, teenagers daring to risk their futures, children like 10-year-old Kian Pirfalak killed by a stray bullet and young men executed for their solidarity with women's plight.
The spark: Mahsa "Jina" Amini
The protests began with the death of Mahsa "Jina" Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who was arrested by Iran’s morality police on September 13, 2022, over the state’s mandatory hijab law.
She was critically injured in custody and died days later in the hospital.
Her name became a rallying cry, her image circulated widely on social media and protest banners across Iran and beyond. Amini's innocence and tragic death resonated deeply with ordinary Iranians, making her the most enduring icon of a movement that sought not just reform but a different future.
Nika Shakarami: the young rebel
Sixteen-year-old Nika Shakarami vanished after joining a Tehran protest in the early days of the uprising. A video captured her shortly before her disappearance, standing on a trash bin, burning her headscarf and chanting “Down with the dictator" with other protesters.
Ten days later, her body was returned to her family under suspicious circumstances. Authorities claimed she fell from a building. Her relatives disputed this, saying her nose was broken and she was beaten. A BBC World report in May 2024 alleged she was sexually assaulted and murdered.
Nika was known for her creativity and love of the arts — poetry, drawing, and music. She dreamed of becoming a professional singer. Outspoken and spirited, her short life of artistic aspiration and teenage defiance became a symbol of how ordinary young Iranians risked everything for freedom.
Hadis Najafi: 22-year-old TikToker
Hadis Najafi, 22, was shot multiple times in the face, neck, chest, abdomen and hand during a protest rally in Karaj in central Iran. Her family was pressured to announce she had died of natural causes.
Najafi frequently posted on TikTok and Instagram, sharing glimpses of her daily life. In a video recorded before she was killed, she said: “I like to think that when I look back on this a few years later, I’ll be pleased I joined the protest.”
Her mother told Iran International that Hadis joined the protests both to mourn Mahsa Amini and to oppose the theocracy's mandatory Islamic dress code for women. Before leaving home, Hadis said she hoped that years later when change comes to Iran she could look back and be glad she had taken part.
Sarina Esmailzadeh: freedom-loving teenager
Sixteen-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh from Karaj was a bright, curious teenager with broad interests. She loved cooking, K-pop music and making playful videos for her YouTube and TikTok channels.
She spoke candidly about justice and freedom. In one post she asked: “What can people expect from their own country? Welfare, welfare, welfare. Nothing else. Why am I not like that teenager in New York who doesn’t have to worry about the compulsory hijab or economic hardship?”
Her online presence, blending humor, music and political awareness, made her a powerful symbol of the courage and aspirations of Iran’s Gen Z.
Mehrshad Shahidi: a voice silenced too soon
Security forces beat 19-year-old chef Mehrshad Shahidi to death with batons at a Revolutionary Guards detention center in Arak, a day before his twentieth birthday in October 2022. Authorities pressured his family to say he died of a heart attack.
Thousands attended his funeral, chanting anti-government slogans. Mehrshad was already head chef at a local restaurant, studying hospitality at university, and a decorated athlete in gymnastics, volleyball, and swimming.
Authorities never tried those accused of his killing, instead threatening his family with destroying his grave — a site still visited by mourners — if they held public commemorations.
Shekari and Hosseini: death sentences for defiance
Mohsen Shekari, 23, and Mohammad Hosseini, 39, were among the first protesters executed after closed-door trials in late 2022 and early 2023. Their deaths, intended as deterrence, became instead rallying cries.
Shekari, a café worker and self-taught guitarist, was arrested during a Tehran protest. Hosseini, a martial arts champion working on a chicken farm, was arrested after attending the memorial for Hadis Najafi in Karaj, where security forces shot dead three protesters.
Shekari was arrested at a protest rally in the west of the capital. Hosseini was arrested a day after the crackdown on a remembrance ceremony for Hadis Najafi in Karaj during which three protesters were shot dead by security forces.
Both were accused of injuring Basij militia members. They denied the charges, and rights groups reported their televised confessions were extracted under torture.
Their executions underscored the movement’s human cost — ordinary men defying extraordinary repression and paying with their lives.
The Islamic Republic survived the Woman, Life, Freedom protests three years ago, but Iranian women’s defiance keeps reshaping society and their lives in irreversible ways.
After the crackdown, hardliners introduced new “hijab enforcement” bills and deployed surveillance cameras to identify unveiled women.
The laws remain on the books, but the persistent defiance of women—and men supporting them—has rendered them largely unenforceable.
“Looking back to three years ago, when the government seemed in total control, I wonder at the courage of those who left home to protest knowing they could be shot, arrested, blinded, or confined to a wheelchair for life,” said Shina, a 34-year-old artist in Tehran.
