Vahid Beigi: Bullet Shattered His Leg, Fear of Arrest Forced Him to Flee Iran

More than five months have passed since the largest massacre of protesters in the contemporary history of Iran. While Iran spent half of 2026 under a total internet blackout, new names of those killed during the two nights of January 8 and 9, alongside testimonies from that bloody January, continue to leak to the world outside Iran.

This report is the narrative of Vahid Beigi, a 34-year-old protester from eastern Tehran who was hit in his left lower leg by a live round on the evening of January 8, at approximately 8:40 p.m., during the opening minutes of a gathering near the Coca-Cola Intersection on Pirouzi Street.

Vahid, whose bullet entered the back of his left calf and exited through the front, shattering his fibula bone at the point of impact, says that upon arriving at the streets surrounding Pirouzi, he wept at the sheer magnitude of the protesting crowd, seeing families composed of elderly people, children, youths, women, and men standing together to protest.

IranWire has reviewed documentation proving that his left fibula bone was shattered at the point of impact. He is currently undergoing medical treatment in another country.

I Wept at the Magnitude of the Crowd

Vahid is 34 years old and notes that since 2009, when he was just 17, he has participated in every protest that has taken place in Tehran: 2009, 2017, 2019, 2022, and January 2026. Emphasizing that during the initial days of the public’s livelihood protests, which rapidly took on an anti-regime tone, he saw people waiting for an opportunity to reclaim the streets. He says, “I hated the Islamic Republic; I was always a protester. They have harassed and tormented the people so much. They destroyed everyone’s hope and future. During those very first days, I went in front of the Alaeddin [shopping mall]. The shopkeepers were chanting slogans, but the officers dispersed the people with tear gas and pellets. They were hitting the shop shutters, and there was so much tear gas that it made one’s eyes burn even from a distance.”

His reference is to the strike by the bazaar and various merchant guilds in Tehran, which began on December 28, following a sharp plunge in the value of the rial and extremely difficult economic conditions, rapidly transforming into one of the most widespread anti-regime protests in the contemporary history of Iran.

Continuing his account, Vahid refers to the call to protest issued by Prince Reza Pahlavi for the nights of January 8 and 9, stating: “When the Prince issued the call, I decided to participate. On the night of January 8, around seven-thirty, I left the house on a motorcycle. I truly could not believe it. Families, women, men, children, all together with their faces covered, were walking down Pirouzi Street. It was incredibly crowded. I burst into tears; I thought it was over for the Islamic Republic. As I was riding the motorcycle, I was genuinely crying; it was just the beginning, and I was looking around to see where to go. I reached the Pirouzi Intersection. The officers were there and were not allowing people to cross the street. They were the IRGC, not plainclothes agents. They told me, ‘Don’t go this way, go downward.’ I went further down, parked the motorcycle, and walked toward the people.”

According to him, the crowd in the surrounding streets was so immense that he did not think he would be able to reach Pirouzi Street itself. On the main street near the Coca-Cola Intersection, however, he notes that “the police and the IRGC were firing pellets, and the crowd kept drawing back into the side streets. They were shooting horrifically; they did not care that they were firing at people’s faces, or that there were elderly individuals and children among the crowd. They fired pellets regardless of any of this.”

Vahid describes in detail the back-and-forth struggle between the public and the authorities, as well as the officers’ efforts to disperse and push back the crowd: “After this attack, the people retreated slightly, but everyone was so determined that after ten or fifteen minutes, they re-entered Pirouzi Street. We were on the eastern side of the Coca-Cola Intersection and wanted to link up with the crowd on the other side of the intersection. They kept dividing and dispersing the people so we would become smaller groups that they could suppress.”

When asked what the people were doing, he replied: “The people were chanting peacefully, and they were firing tear gas continuously. The sound of pellets could be heard. But the people were not afraid; they moved toward them.”

In an instant, however, the environment changed: “They fired a few tear gas canisters into the middle of the street, and the people stopped. I was left in the middle. I went to run toward the people when I felt severe pain in my leg. I didn’t realize at all that I had been shot. It felt like an electric shock. It was an intense pain. I thought a tear gas canister had struck my leg; I couldn’t believe they would fire live ammunition. They had been firing pellets, and I honestly did not think they would resort to shooting live rounds at the people right at the beginning.”

Despite the immense pain and bleeding, he managed to reach the safety of the crowd. A family at the scene helped him untie the keffiyeh he had used to cover his face so they could bind it around his thigh to reduce the bleeding: “To avoid falling into their hands, I did whatever it took to reach the crowd. I was shouting and asking people for help. I felt terrible. Someone came up and asked what had happened; I said I thought I had been hit by pellets. I had been hit by pellets before, and it didn’t hurt this much. I was sitting in a spot where a few families were present; they told me to untie my keffiyeh and bind it above my knee to stop the bleeding. I was worried about identification and my face. My entire fear was falling into their hands. For that reason, I moved further back. While I was retreating, a few women picked me up in their car.”

He succeeded in reaching a safe location. According to his own account, he later realized it was a live round that had entered through one side and exited through the other. This factor allowed him to avoid going to a hospital. Numerous testimonies have been published regarding efforts by suppression forces to arrest protesting citizens and the wounded inside hospitals. Reports have also emerged concerning the arrest of medical personnel who assisted wounded protesters in hospitals.

Vahid managed his wound using saline solution, antibiotics, and bandages, but the pain was unbearable. Following the advice of his relatives, he managed, with great difficulty and through several intermediaries, to secure help from medical personnel who were assisting the wounded. It was at that point that he learned his left fibula bone was broken.

My Fear Was of Arrest and Torture

Throughout the interview, Vahid repeatedly refers to his terror of arrest and torture. Recalling the moments of returning to the safe house where he took refuge for about a week after being wounded, as well as his subsequent efforts to recover and maintain his safety, he continues with phrases such as, “I had no fear of death; I just didn’t want them to catch me.”

Vahid says that about a month later, on February 6, Basij agents went to his parents’ house looking for him. Since they could not find him, they took his electronic devices, including his computer and an external hard drive: “I used to go out of the house all the time; I wouldn’t stay inside, and I would socialize with people. They probably realized something had happened because of this absence. About a month later, on February 6, they raided our house and took my electronic devices. They took my hard drive and computer. They had asked, ‘Where is he? Do you have any news of him?’ They were in plainclothes.”

After hearing about this and the arrest of several of his friends, Vahid left Iran: “On March 10, they raided our house again, acted disrespectfully, and said, ‘Wherever he is, he must return.’ It is truly a question for me: didn’t they know I had left Iran? I think information doesn’t circulate very well among themselves either.”

Emphasizing that he left Iran “legally” and through Tehran’s Khomeini Airport, he points to the severe pain and stress he endured while passing through various security gates, saying: “I called my loved ones and told them, ‘If you don’t receive a message from me in a few hours, know that I’ve been arrested.’ In short, I asked for their forgiveness and set off.”

Stating that the path from entering the airport doors to boarding the airplane was the longest route of his life, despite always being an athlete, he says: “I was under severe stress, and when the passport was stamped for exit, I went to the smoking room and smoked five or six remaining cigarettes back-to-back. I was thinking to myself, ‘These are your last cigarettes before getting arrested.’ From there, it was finally the turn of the IRGC section. I have always exercised a lot in my life, but while I was walking this path, I felt it was one of the most distant and longest paths of my life. Distance-wise, it might have been short, but mentally it put so much pressure on me that I felt I was about to have a heart attack. Even though I had taken all those pills, I was in pain and screaming on the inside, but I had to pretend everything was normal.”

Pointing to the danger of arrest that he felt was right at his doorstep, the young protester says: “At one point, after I had passed the IRGC gate and was sitting waiting to board, I had headphones in my ears. I was waiting for them to come and arrest me. When I got on the plane, I couldn’t believe it. Once the plane started moving, I just cried until we arrived. When we arrived, there I was in a foreign country; I neither knew anyone nor did I know what I was supposed to do. I had completely broken down. A ruined person who doesn’t know their language and doesn’t know what to do.”