This page keeps the memory of 34 people of Salmas, a city in the province of West Azerbaijan. The list for Salmas begins on 1 Esfand 1389 and reaches 18 Dey 1404. Most of these names come from prison: 29 people were executed. 3 people were killed in protests and 2 people lost their lives at the hands of government forces outside the protests.
The first day and the year 1395
The list for Salmas begins with a heavy day: on 1 Esfand 1389, 3 people from this city were executed, and all the names of that year belong to this one day. The year 1395, with 11 names, is the heaviest year of this page; in that year three days, 6 Mordad 1395, 2 Aban 1395 and 17 Azar 1395, have two names each. The remaining names are scattered: 2 names in 1390, 3 names in 1392, one name in 1394, one name in 1398, one name in 1400, 2 names in 1401, 3 names in each of the years 1402 and 1403 and 4 names in 1404. The day 29 Dey 1401 also has two names.
The ages range from 17 to 47 years, and the median is 34 years. One person on this list was under 18, and the sources have written of 2 people that they were women.
Reza Esmaili (Mamdi)
Reza Esmaili (Mamdi) was 34 years old. The source has a sentence about his family that shows his loneliness: “He was married and had one child, and had lost his family in a fire (gas explosion).” According to the source, he “was under physical and psychological pressure for one month in the intelligence detention centre in Salmas.” On 4 Aban 1392 he “was hanged in Salmas Central Prison without his family's knowledge.”
His body was not handed over to the family, and the security forces buried him in an unknown place. But his family did not give up. The source writes that they “found the place where the body was buried in one of the cemeteries of Salmas, exhumed their son's body and moved it to the village of ‘Derik,’ his birthplace.” This family, with their own hands, returned their son to the soil of his birthplace.
Others
Garman Amini, 36 years old, was a kolbar (border porter) and married. He was killed by government forces outside the protests on 22 Ordibehesht 1395. In the list for Salmas, he is one of the two people who lost their lives neither in prison nor in a street protest, but on the way to work.
Sami Mamdi was executed on 10 Aban 1395 and Iraj Hamedi one day later, on 11 Aban 1395. About both, the source has only one word: “married.” Their age is not recorded in our sources. Asghar Hajizadeh, 47 years old, “father of 3 children,” was executed on 27 Ordibehesht 1403. The charge attributed to those executed on this page is what the authorities or the sources have stated, not a verdict of their guilt.
For most of the names from Salmas, including the three people who were executed on the first day of this list, the sources have recorded nothing but a name and a date. We have details of life for only 5 people.
Sources and the incompleteness of the list
These 34 names are not all of those from Salmas who lost their lives. The real number is higher, and for many executions no name has come out; in Salmas, too, no name finds its way onto this page without a source. The sources of this page are the Kurdistan Human Rights Network with 23 cases, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 17 cases, the Iran Human Rights Society with 4 cases, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (English-language) and HRANA with 3 cases each, and HRANA / Human Rights Activists in Iran, KHRN and Iran International with one case each. Some entries rest on only one source. If you knew one of these people of Salmas, send us your memory or correction.