Zahedan’s Bloody Friday (30 September 2022)

This page keeps the memory of the Javid-Nam (“everlasting names”), those who lost their lives, on Bloody Friday in Zahedan: the day of 8 Mehr 1401, on which worshippers and protesters in Zahedan were shot. This list contains 141 names, and all of them lost their lives on this one day and in this one city. Of these 141 people, 138 were killed in protests and 3 were killed by government forces. This page is, above all, the remembrance of one day.

Who they were

What stands out most in this list is the youth of those killed. Their median age is 23 years. 24 people were under 18 years of age; children and adolescents, the youngest of whom, according to the data, was 2 years old. The oldest person killed that day was 88 years old. There is only 1 woman in this list whose source stated that she was a woman. Several of those whose life stories are available had no birth certificate, according to the sources; among them Mohammad Eghbal Naebzehi, 16 years old, and Omid Safarzehi, 17 years old, who was hit by a bullet in the neck and head.

In the Makki prayer hall

Omid Shahnavazi, 20 years old, was a construction worker and, a few months before his death, taught at the Bagheri Mosque in Zahedan. Because he had no birth certificate as a child he had not gone to school, but he had studied religion at the school of the neighbourhood mosque and for two years at the Makki Mosque, and had become a mawlawi (cleric). He was the father of a two-year-old daughter, and the source calls him “a modest, calm and quiet young man.” Omid had gone to the Makki prayer hall for Friday prayers when three sniper bullets hit him in the chest and kidney. The source says that his birth certificate would not be cancelled unless the family agreed to have “heart disease” written on the death certificate. He was buried in the Lar cemetery.

Farzad Shahbakhsh, 26 years old, an apprentice tiler with a pre-university diploma, supported a family of eight together with his older brother. He was shot from behind in the heart in the prayer hall of the Makki Mosque. According to the source, security forces did not let him be buried in his birthplace and said: “These people have no place [in this cemetery].” This question from his family remains: “He had come to pray. Is praying a crime?”

In the streets

Yaser Shahbakhsh, 36 years old, according to the source “one of the brilliant shooting talents of Baluchestan,” came into the street when the Makki Mosque was under siege and was killed by a direct shot. According to Haalvsh, Abdoljalil Ghanbarzehi (Shahbakhsh), 24 years old, son of Abdolrahman, also died on the evening of that same Friday together with Yaser, whom they call “the defender of Makki”; according to the source, the street signs where he was killed were later changed to his name. Abdollah Narouei, according to the source without a birth certificate and the father of five children, died on the same day from a direct shot. Mohammad Seddigh Narouei, 23 years old, son of Serajeddin, was also killed on Bloody Friday by direct fire from military forces. About most of those killed that day, the sources have recorded only the father's name, the age and the manner of death.

About this list

The list of the Javid-Nam on Bloody Friday in Zahedan is not complete. The real number of those killed that day may be higher; some never had a birth certificate and their names appeared in no document, and we record only a name that has a source. The largest share of this page comes from the Iran Human Rights Society with 181 cases; followed by Persian Wikipedia with 109, English Wikipedia with 104, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 70 and Haalvsh with 21 cases. Every name from 8 Mehr has at least one source, but some only one. For 56 people a description of their life is available. If you knew one of the Javid-Nam on 8 Mehr 1401 in Zahedan, share the correct name, a memory or a correction with us.