This page keeps the memory of 23 drivers; people of whom the sources have written in the description of their lives that they earned their bread behind the wheel of a taxi, van, lorry, truck or forklift. The first date on this page is 18 Mehr 1390 and the last 20 Mehr 1405. 13 of them were killed in protests and 8 were executed. One person was killed outside the protests and one other person by government forces.
Men in the middle of life
The ages on this page range from 29 to 63 years, and the median is 38 years. The drivers on this list were mostly men who supported a family. No one under 18 is recorded on this page, and the sources have not written of any of them that they were a woman; although one of the names, as you will read below, is a woman who sometimes sat behind the wheel of a taxi. 13 names belong to the year 1404; 5 people were killed on 18 Dey 1404 and 3 people on 19 Dey 1404. Karaj with 4 names, and Kermanshah and Alvand with 2 names each have the highest numbers.
Dey 1404
Ali Azizi, 42 years old, a truck driver and father of three children, was killed on 12 Dey 1404 in Harsin. After his death, IRGC intelligence called him “a Basij member” and had his father sit in front of the camera; but according to the source, his fellow townspeople and witnesses have rejected this account. Reza Bahmani Alijanvand, 34 years old, a forklift driver in a brick factory in Shahinshahr, who according to those close to him “worked from morning till night,” disappeared after the protest of 18 Dey, and his body was found six days later.
Abolghasem Babaei, 44 years old, a driver and father of three children, was killed on 20 Dey in Vahidieh in Shahriar by pellets and batons. Diar Pourchehrigh, 32 years old, had just bought a car and gone to Tehran to work as a passenger driver; he was killed on 21 Dey 1404 in Pounak, and his body was buried in a village in Salmas after the payment of 800 million tomans. Mahmoud Maleki Najafabadi, 38 years old, a lorry driver, whose daughter Bahar wished that her father would be the first to hear her read aloud, was also killed in these days.
Ameneh Shahbazifard
Ameneh Shahbazifard, 34 years old, was a secretary at her brother's phone taxi company and sometimes drove herself. She was the mother of three children. On 26 Aban 1398 in Malard, when she had taken off her shawl to bind the wound of a young man, she was shot from behind. Her brother describes her like this: “She was a friend who was both father and mother to him.”
Drivers who were executed
Jamshid Dehghani, 29 years old, a taxi driver and the eldest son of a poor family of five, was executed on 13 Esfand 1393; after the arrest of the brothers, his family got by on “people's handouts.” Ahmad Nasiri, 35 years old, an agency driver, was executed on 12 Mordad 1395 in Rajaei Shahr together with 24 others. Dehghan Salamat, 45 years old, a van driver and father of 5 children who also took care of the family of his deceased brother, was hanged on 18 Mehr 1390 in Urmia; the first name on this page. Bakhtiar Mohammadi, who sold his taxi to open a bakery, was executed on 13 Dey 1396, and Habibollah Ghanbarzehi Farjad, 38 years old, on 20 Mehr 1405. The charges are the account of the authorities, not a verdict of guilt.
Farhang Amiri, 63 years old, a Baha'i driver and farmer in Yazd, was killed with a knife in front of his house on 5 Mehr 1395.
Sources and incompleteness
These 23 names are not all of the drivers who have lost their lives; the page contains only those whose occupation the sources have mentioned. The sources of this page are the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (English-language) and HRANA / Human Rights Activists in Iran with 10 cases each, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center and Iran International with 8 each, Kurdpa and iranhrs.org with 7 each, the Hana Human Rights Organization with 6, Iran International with 4, and IranWire and iranintl.com with 2 cases each. If you were a colleague or passenger of one of these drivers, send us your memory or correction.