This page keeps the memory of 72 workers; construction workers, day labourers, welders, workshop and factory workers and people who worked from adolescence to earn bread for their family. The first date on this page is 21 Farvardin 1388 and the last 20 Mordad 1405. 40 of them were killed in protests and 20 were executed. 5 lost their lives in custody. One person was assassinated outside Iran, one person was killed outside the protests and one other person by government forces, and one person died in suspicious circumstances. The death sentence of one person has been upheld, one person has been sentenced to death and one person faces a charge that carries the death penalty.
Years and cities
The names of workers appear in almost all the years of this list, from 2 names in 1388 to 4 names in 1395, but the year 1404, with 37 names, makes up more than half of the page; 19 workers were killed on 18 Dey 1404, 7 workers on 19 Dey 1404 and 3 workers on 13 Dey 1404. Tehran with 14 names, Karaj with 11, Kermanshah with 5 and Mashhad with 4 names have the highest numbers. The ages range from 15 to 54 years, and the median is 28 years. 8 people were under 18; children who worked instead of going to school. The sources have written of 3 people that they were women.
Dey 1404
Mosayeb Nezami, 32 years old, a farmer and worker in Borujerd, who according to the source despite his education “had refused to work in government and state bodies,” was the breadwinner of his elderly mother and his sister. This sentence of his remains: “If I am killed, do not betray my blood.” He was wounded on 18 Dey 1404 and, according to the source, was killed with a coup de grâce after being taken to hospital. Parsa Rahmati, the only son of the family, who after his diploma worked in a small workshop to help with the household expenses, was killed on the same day in the Fallah neighbourhood of Tehran by a bullet to the neck. Mohsen Ghahremanpour, 22 years old, a worker who had just started making portable cabins and wanted to become an entrepreneur, was targeted in Tehranpars from a distance of one metre.
Earlier
Farzad Ansarifar, 27 years old, a construction worker in Behbahan who had left school to help his family and did tiling and mosaic work, was shot from behind on 25 Aban 1398. Ehsanollah Ehsani, 20 years old, an Afghan welder and builder of the Hazara people, resident in Yazd and a footballer, who had left school because of discriminatory treatment, lost his life in custody on 31 Ordibehesht 1395.
Those executed
Of the 20 workers executed, several were hanged on the same day or in the same case. Jahangir Dehghani, 28 years old, a waste recycling worker, and his brother Jamshid were executed on 13 Esfand 1393 in Rajaei Shahr; Hadi Hosseini, 31 years old, an unskilled labourer and father of an eight-year-old son, also on the same day. Seyed Mohammad Hosseini, 39 years old, a worker at the Morghak company in Qazvin who taught martial arts to poor children free of charge, was executed on 17 Dey 1401; he had said: “I grew up without father and mother and with hardship.” Alireza Madadpour, who worked as a labourer to pay for his studies, was executed on 6 Shahrivar 1395, and Mohsen Nasiri, a street vendor from a working-class family, on 22 Dey 1394. The charges are the account of the authorities, not a verdict of guilt.
Sources and incompleteness
These 72 names are not all of the workers who have lost their lives; the page contains only those whose work the sources have mentioned, and for many workers no occupation has been recorded in the sources. The main sources are Iran International and HRANA / Human Rights Activists in Iran with 34 cases each, iranhrs.org with 33, iranintl.com with 28, the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center with 26, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (English-language) with 25, Kurdpa with 22, the Hana Human Rights Organization with 18, Iran International with 17 and Persian Wikipedia with 16 cases. If you were a colleague of one of these workers, send us your memory or correction.