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Politics

Blinding As A Weapon (7): “My Heart Is Still Beating,” Says Protester Shot In Eye

February 9, 2023
Aida Ghajar
4 min read
The left eye of Behzad Hamrahi, a father of two small children, was hit by a paintball shot from a short distance.
The left eye of Behzad Hamrahi, a father of two small children, was hit by a paintball shot from a short distance.
"When I looked up, the barrel of a gun was in front of my face," Behzad Hamrahi said.
"When I looked up, the barrel of a gun was in front of my face," Behzad Hamrahi said.

As IranWire has reported, hundreds of Iranians have sustained severe eye injuries after being hit by pellets, tear gas cannisters, paintball bullets or other projectiles used by security forces amid a bloody crackdown on mainly peaceful demonstrations.

The report concluded that such actions by the security forces could constitute a “crime against humanity,” as defined by Article 7 of the Rome Statute.

In this series of reports, IranWire presents the victims’ stories as told by themselves. Some have posted their stories, along with their names and pictures, on social media. Others, whose real names shall not be disclosed to protect their safety, have told their stories to IranWire. IranWire could make their identities and medical available to international legal authorities.

This is the story of Behzad Hamrahi, a 43-year-old Tehran resident who was arrested during protests in 2003 and 2009 and spent more than six months behind bars.

He took to the streets again last year to join ongoing nationwide protests triggered by the September death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police. This time he lost sight in his left eye after being shot by police.

“You shot me in the eye, but my heart is still beating,” he wrote on his Instagram page. “No moment goes by without me thinking about what happened that night. At every moment, I hear the sound of my eyeball exploding.”

November 15, Tehran’s Sadeghieh Street

It was 7:30 p.m. when security forces used violence to disperse groups of protesters who had gathered in the streets and alleyways, shouting slogans against the Islamic Republic.

Behzad Hamrahi and tens of other protesters ran to take shelter in the buildings’ parking lots. When they left their shelters, they saw residents of a building washing away blood from the pavement. The security forces had beaten a young man so badly that his head was fractured.

Half an hour later, the demonstrators started shouting slogans again, and the security forces once again assaulted them. It was now 8:00 p.m.

Behzad and a few other protesters took shelter in the parking lot of the same building.

“They attacked us and started beating us. They grabbed the hair of a young woman from behind and pulled her to take her with them. I couldn’t take it and I released the woman from their grasp when somebody suddenly grasped my hands from behind and held them tightly. When I looked up, the barrel of a gun was in front of my face. I was shot in the eye with a paintball from a close distance.”

The paintball broke the glasses that Behzad was wearing and penetrated his eye. “Ouch, I am blind,” the man said before falling to the ground.

Armed riot police pulled the hood of his jacket over his head and dragged him across the parking lot while kicking and beating him with batons.

“I don’t know why they let me go,” he says. “Perhaps because my eye was hemorrhaging badly.”

When the policemen left, a young couple lifted Behzad by his armpits and took him to their home. He was able to call his family and a doctor removed the broken pieces of glass from his eye.

 November 16, the Treatment Starts

 The next day, hospital doctors told Behzad his eye could not be saved and that the eyeball should be removed.

Behzad only agreed to have his eyeball removed on January 7, two months after the incident. And after two weeks, he was implanted with a hydroxyapatite artificial eyeball.

Dr. Rouzbeh Esfandiari, a former doctor with Tehran Emergency Services, tells IranWire that “hydroxyapatite is a compound that contains calcium and phosphate, and it naturally exists in the human body and teeth. It is used for artificial eyeballs because they do not cause allergy and are not rejected by the body’s immune system.”

Blinding As A Weapon (7): “My Heart Is Still Beating,” Says Protester Shot In Eye

Let Fate Take Care of the Assailant

If Behzad meets his assailant, he would ask him, “How much money did you get to shoot people in the eye? Was the money earned honorably? Did you feel proud to feed your family with it?”

“Money is not important; humanity is the important thing. I let fate avenge me and people like me. He must pay in this world for what he did.”

Behzad is married and has two small children. When the six-year-old boy looks at his father’s face, he looks down. His two-year-old daughter, however, picks up the eyedrop herself, goes to her father and says, “Daddy’s eye is ouched.”

“I cannot stay silent when my country is on the line”

“This is a path that I have chosen, and I am not afraid,” says Behzad. “I cannot stay silent when my country is on the line. I really love this land.”

Behzad Hamrahi was arrested during protests in 2003 and spent six months in solitary confinement at Ward 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison. Revolutionary Court Judge Abolghasem Salavati sentenced the man to one year imprisonment, but he was released after six months.

He was once again detained during protests that followed the 2009 disputed presidential election and was released a week later without any explanation.

During the ongoing unrest, however, he lost one eye.

“Every time I think about it, I want to cry but I’m happy that I succeeded in saving the life of a young woman,” says Behzad. “I lost an eye, but I’m so happy to have saved one person.”

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