The Story Of An Iranian Hospital Worker Shot Dead By Security Forces

Parveneh Masoumi, citizen journalist

Alireza Hosseini, 28, died after being hit by a stray of bullets fired by security forces on September 23 during a street protest in Eslamshahr, Tehran Province.

This report tells Hosseini’s story through the eyes of an eyewitness who spoke to IranWire. This witness spent three weeks looking for the victim’s family before finally meeting with his father.

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A young man is walking along a sidewalk at Eslamshahr’s Golestan Second Roundabout as a group of protesters are chanting slogans nearby.

The atmosphere is filled with the smell of gunpowder. People are looking around with anxiety.

"Move faster, go home, you scoundrels," a plainclothes officer shouts.

A few shots are heard and a woman starts screaming. The young man falls to the ground, with blood pouring out of his body. His empty food box fell next to him.

Several people approach the body. An old man kneels down, puts his head on the young man's chest, raises his head and says, "His heart is not beating."

The old man stands up and shouts, "They killed him!"

A woman screams again.

"His face and chest were bloody. It was not clear how many bullets hit him," the eyewitness told IranWire.

"The officers came towards us, dispersed people with batons and carried the body of the man they had killed into their car. The only thought that came to my mind was to take his wallet before the officers come so I could find his family.”

In the wallet, the witness found 30,000 Tomans in cash - less than one U.S. dollar - and a bank card.

"I visited several bank branches and said I found his wallet and asked for an address, but they said that customers' information is confidential.”

The witness went several times to the roundabout where Hosseini was shot dead.

“After three weeks, a shopkeeper finally gave me an address and I was able to find Alireza Hosseini's house.”

"His family was poor. I told his father I had found his wallet on the street. He said that forensic doctors called and handed over Alireza's body. He said he saw several bullet marks on his son's body. The medical examiner wrote on the death certificate that the cause of death was that he was hit by one live bullet."

His father told the witness that he went to the local branches of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) and paramilitary Basij force to file a lawsuit.

The father said his son was not participating in the demonstration and that he was coming back home from work when was killed.

"It’s not our business, we have not killed such a person," officers told the mourning father.

Alireza Hosseini was single. He was a hospital worker and the breadwinner of his family.