This page holds 50 names from Semnan, and almost all of them, 49 people, were executed in this city. Only one person has a different fate: he or she was killed by government forces outside the protests. The first date on this page is 31 Tir 1388 and the last 14 Shahrivar 1405. The list for Semnan is a list of gallows of which few people ever heard.
The years that have names
The names from Semnan on this list belong almost entirely to recent years. From the earlier years only a few names remain: one name in 1388 and 2 names in 1395. Then come 2 names in 1403. But in the year 1404, 35 people on this page lost their lives; more than two thirds of all the names in a single year. And the year 1405, which has not yet ended, has 8 names so far.
For many of the names, the sources have recorded the date only as far as the year. Among the days that are known, five days in the year 1404 have two names each: 26 Shahrivar 1404, 22 Mehr 1404, 21 Dey 1404, 29 Dey 1404 and 3 Esfand 1404. That is, in this year two people were hanged on one day in Semnan several times; including in the month of Dey, at the same time as the days when the streets of the country were full of protest.
Who they were
The recorded ages range from 24 to 63 years, and the median is 39 years. Those executed in Semnan were mostly middle-aged men; people who very probably had work and a family. The sources have clearly written of 2 people that they were women. No one under 18 is recorded on this page.
A page without stories
For none of these 50 people have the sources we have recorded a description of life. No occupation, no child's name, no sentence from someone who loved them. We do not know who the two women on this list were, and we do not know where and how the person who was killed outside the protests lost their life. We do not know how the thirty-five people who were executed in the year 1404 spent their last days and who received their bodies.
This emptiness itself says something about the executions in Semnan: the news, if it arrived at all, was only a few words; a name, a date and sometimes an age. Behind each of these 50 rows there was a human being with a home, with people who waited for them, and with a day on which they did not come back. The charge attributed to each of those executed is the account of the authorities or the sources, and this page does not regard it as a verdict of their guilt.
Sources and the incompleteness of the list
These 50 names are not all of those who were executed in Semnan. The prison of this city has executed more than these, and the news of many of those executions was either published without a name or never got out. The list for Semnan contains only names that at least one report has recorded. The sources of this page are the Iran Human Rights Society and HRANA with 25 cases each, Iran Human Rights with 10 cases, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 3 cases and Haalvsh with one case. Because most of the names from Semnan come from only one or two reports, errors may have crept into the spelling of a name or an age.
If you knew one of those executed in Semnan, if you were a fellow prisoner, neighbour or relative of one of them, we ask you to send us a memory, a photo or a correction. The page for Semnan, which does not yet have even one story, needs above all the voices of those who knew these people and can say who they were.