JINA MAHSA AMINI
The face of Iran's protests. Her life, her dreams and her death.
In memory of Jina 'Mahsa' Amini, the cornerstone of the 'Zan. Zendagi. Azadi revolution.
16 February 2023 | By Gino d'Artali
And also
Read all about the assasination of the 22 year young Jhina Mahsa Amini or Zhina Mahsa Amini (Kurdistan-Iran) and the start of the Zan, Zendagi, Azadi (Women, life, freedom) revolution in Iran  2022
and the latest news about the 'Women Live Freedom' Revolution per month in 2023: July 31 - 16--July 15 -1--June 30 - 15--June 15-1--May 31 -16-- May 15-1--April--March--Feb--Jan
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all updates 27 June, 2023

<Persian social media is full of young people who say they were shot in the eye by security forces>

Iranwire - June 29, 2023 - by AIDA GHAJAR
<<Protest Crackdown Victim Returns to Coaching at IranWire
<Daily exercise boosts women's self-esteem and teaches them that their own well-being should be their top priority. Women should not get lost in the demands of everyday life and neglect themselves. Engaging in consistent daily exercise strengthens this mindset.> These are the words of Mercedeh Shahinkar, a sports coach who lost an eye on October 15 last year when a member of the armed forces shot at her with a paintball weapon during nationwide protests. IranWire previously published a detailed report on her dramatic experience. Despite enduring a night of terror and spending three months as a refugee, Mercedeh returned to coaching. The <Ten Sessions of Bodybuilding without Facilities> is a training program that Mercedeh has developed. It includes exercises such as squat with front arm, side push-up, plank, chest press, single-leg deadlift, squat with back arm, side lunge, back plank and dead bug. Mercedeh always harbored a dream of establishing her own gym and empowering more women through sports. Collaborating with IranWire has become a transformative experience for her. <After my eye injury, I believed I couldn't continue pursuing sports, but now I feel that I'm getting closer to my goal and dream,> she says. Perhaps the armed forces and the commander who targeted the protesters' eyes thought that blinding them would render their forces impotent and ineffective. However, they were unaware that, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, resilience emerges from the depths and spreads its wings to create freedom. Take the example of Mercedeh, a single mother in the realm of asylum seekers. She now places a shield over her injured eye, takes a deep breath and rebuilds her life. She does so by sharing fitness training videos on IranWire.com. There's a proverb that states: <There is no strength greater than the strength of a mother.> Now, imagine this mother, scarred by her experiences, shouldering the responsibility of taking care of her daughter alone while in the limbo of asylum. Her eye was taken from her, her life was altered forever, and she was thrust into the world of asylum seekers. Yet, Mercedeh chooses to live and uplift herself and others in the face of oppression and violence. Doesn't this brief explanation inspire you to challenge yourself, stand alongside Mercedeh and engage in exercise?>>
Read more here:
https://iranwire.com/en/blinding-as-a-weapon/118013-protest-crackdown-victim-returns-to-coaching-at-iranwire/

Iranwire - June 23, 2023
<<Blinding as a Weapon (44): Nothing Is Like It Was before for Tattoo Artist Ashtari
In the series of reports <Blinding as a Weapon,> IranWire presents the victims' stories told in their own words. 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, which can make their identities and medical records available to international legal authorities and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the story of Hossein Ashtari, a 22-year-old tattoo artist who was shot by security forces during two separate protests and lost an eye. Nevertheless, he did not stop joining the protests even though both his life and his spirit had been broken into pieces.
***
Wearing an eye patch, a young man sits on a bench, picks up the kalimba next to him and starts playing the tune that invites you to hum along.
Before last year's nationwide protests started, Hossein Ashtari, a 22-year-old resident of Karaj, near Tehran, was a tattoo artist. He has loved painting since his childhood. He also plays dulcimer, a stringed musical instrument. He was a wrestler as well but an injury forced him to quit the sport. Instead, he turned to mountain climbing. As demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini's death spread, Ashtari and his friends joined the protest movement. He participated in rallies in Karaj and Tehran. He was first targeted by security forces in September of 2022, soon after the protests started. One of his fingers was injured by a pellet in that shooting. The second time, on October 9, his left eye was seriously damaged by a paintball. Still, on November 3, Ashtari participated with his damaged eye in the ceremonies marking the 40th day since the death of Hadis Najafi, a 20-year-old woman who had been killed in a spray of bullets in Karaj. In these ceremonies, several more people were blinded and two protesters, Mohammad Mahdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini, were later hanged, but this time Ashtari managed to get away without any injuries.
After that, each time when Ashtari accompanied his friends in their cars to join protests and there was shooting, he was terrorized and traumatized.
Broken Glass in the Eye
Calls were posted on social media asking protesters to come to the streets in various locations, including outside universities. Ashtari and his friends agreed to join protesting students on October 9. It was 1 p.m. when Ashtari and friends arrived outside Karaj Azad University in Gohardasht neighborhood. Nothing was happening there, so Ashtari and other protesters moved to Gohardasht Circle, where a few students were staging a sit-in, chanting slogans. Security forces on motorcycles started shooting at the crowd. The protesters dispersed, except Ashtari and a few others. A security agent who was sitting on the backseat of a motorcycle and was wearing a completely black uniform and a black helmet fired three paintballs at Ashtari. One bullet injured his shoulder, another one hit his neck and triggered a severe hemorrhage and the third one shattered his glasses, tearing his left eyeball. A friend was pulling Ashtari back when he himself was shot with paintballs from behind. The two injured men managed to get to Dariush Street where an old man opened the door to his home and gave them shelter. Hiding the Injury Ashtari was taken to Shahi Beheshti Clinic, which lacked facilities for surgery. They sent him to Noordidegan Eye Hospital, but either the surgeon was absent or was busy so he was taken to Farabi Hospital in Tehran. Ashtari underwent surgery in the morning of October 10 during which pieces of glass were removed from his eye and the eyeball was stitched.
Broken Eye, Broken Life
Ashtari was taken home after the surgery. His friends and his family were around him. Ashtari is the youngest of four brothers and sisters and his siblings left everything else aside to stay next him and help him return to life. They set up a bed in the drawing room and gathered around Ashtari, but whenever light bothered his injured eye he would turn off the light and remained in the dark by himself with his trauma. For months, Ashtari has taken his dulcimer out of his case to play, but his kalimba is always within his reach. He plays songs that bring him some peace, songs like Woman's Anthem, which was released 18 days after Amini's death, or Youth of the Motherland, written during Iran's Constitutional Revolution in the early 20th century. The song starts with <From the blood of the youth of the motherland a tulip had grown.> Amid harassment of those who were shot in the eyes and bravely told the world about their ordeals, Ashtari lives in constant fear. Perhaps like many other victims, he is woken up by nightmares. He has no energy to return to work even though he loved being a tattoo artist passionately.>>
Source:
https://iranwire.com/en/blinding-as-a-weapon/117806-blinding-as-a-weapon-44-nothing-is-like-it-was-before-for-tattoo-artist-ashtari/

Iranwire - June 13, 2023 - By AIDA GHAJAR
<<Blinding As A Weapon (43): The Blinded Father Whose Child Miraculously Survived
As IranWire has reported, hundreds of Iranians have sustained severe eye injuries after being hit by pellets, tear gas canisters, paintball bullets or other projectiles used by security forces amid a bloody crackdown on mainly peaceful demonstrations. Doctors say that, as of now, at least 580 protesters have lost one or both eyes in Tehran and in Kurdistan alone. But the actual numbers across the country are much higher. 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 the series of reports <Blinding as a Weapon,> IranWire presents the victims' stories told in their own words. 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, which can make their identities and medical records available to international legal authorities and the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This is the story of Delpasand family: Ali, the father, Bahareh, the mother, and Respina, their little daughter. On November 15, 2022, their car came under fire from security forces in the city of Rasht. The father lost an eye and the face of the mother was filled with pellets. The little girl, who witnessed this savagery, miraculously survived unharmed. A day later, Kian Pirfalak, a boy of nine, the same age as Respina, and his family were similarly attacked in their car in another city but he did not survive. When Respina heard about Kian, she painted a rainbow in his memory and Delpasand family has never forgotten about him.
***
It was the afternoon of November 15, 2022. Bahareh and her husband, Ali Delpasand, were in their car and had picked up their daughter Respina from a training class. The streets were crowded with protesters. They wanted to join them and a few times left the car to do so. But they came face to face with security forces and returned to their car. Ali was sounding the car's horn to show his support for the protesters. Respina and a family friend were sitting in the back of the car. Bahareh, sitting in front, extended her arm out of the window with a victory sign when something like a sledgehammer crashed unto her face. Suddenly, the windshield and windows were shattered and Respina started screaming. Bahareh turned her head and saw that her husband's neck was bent forward. Blood and screaming overwhelmed her. Protesters surrounded the car, a man opened the car door, pushed Ali to the side, sat behind the wheel and drove the family to their home. Seven months later, Ali, Bahareh and Respina left Iran for Turkey. In a phone interview, they told IranWire about that night and what they went through later.
From Iran To Turkey
You can hear the voice of the child on the phone, which continuously changes hands between Bahareh and Ali. The names of Kian Pirfalak and his mother Mahmonir Molaei-Rad and how their car was hit with a volley of gunfire is repeated in our conversation. <Just like what happened to Kian,> Ali and Bahareh repeat several times. What Ali says about the moment that their car was shot is what his wife had described to him.
Bahareh takes the phone: <We were stuck in the traffic. Everybody was honking. Just then I was telling Ali that people believe those who were killing the protesters are not Iranians. Two motorcycles of agents of repression were on the side of that street, next to our car. They spoke in Gilaki [spoken language of Iran's northern province of Gilan]. I told Ali that they were our kinsmen. I turned my head towards the car next to us. A girl had extended her hand out of the car's window with a victory sign and I did the same. Then everything was torn apart. Suddenly something like a sledgehammer crashed unto my face and blood gushed from my face. I turned towards Ali and saw his neck drooping. I thought that he had died.>
It happened in Golsar, a suburb of Rasht, the capital of Gilan province. The protests were centered on Gelayol Junction and protesters had blocked entrances to the square, except one, and that was the one that the cars were trying to use. Motorcyclist security agents had parked their motorcycles on the sidewalk. It was from the sidewalk, three or four meters away, that they fired their pellet guns at their car, right at the moment when Bahareh had her hand out with a victory sign. Ali takes the phone: <And they only shot at our car. They did not shoot at any car with a single passenger. Why did they target us, a family? Did they know me? Had they aimed at us?> People gathered around their car. The protesters were shouting: <Get this family away from here so that the security forces will not get to them.> Bahareh and Respina were shouting. Ali's and Bahareh's faces were covered with blood.
The Priority Was Ali's Eye
One protester jumped in the car and started driving the family to their home. A Kia Pride car with a few bearded passengers followed them. They told the driver that they were willing to take Ali to the hospital, but Bahareh rejected their offer, and the Pride car went away. Bahareh left Respina in the care of a neighbor and drove to the hospital in another car. The clinics and the hospitals in Rasht sent them to Tehran's Farabi Hospital. Worried that she would attract the attention of security forces because of the pellets on her forehead and her cheeks, Bahareh had pulled down the hood of her parka over her face. At the hospital, the guard told them it would be better if Bahareh left the hospital because security agents were stationed there.
A pellet was lodged under Bahareh's eye and two in her eyebrow. Had they been a fraction higher or lower, Bahareh might have lost an eye.
Bahareh takes over the call: <They told us in the hospital that pellets in my face were not a priority: my husband's eye needed immediate treatment. The hospital was filled with people who had been injured in the eye. A woman was there who was shot as she was watching the street from the balcony of her home. Another woman was shot in her leg and they transferred her to another hospital. All I could think of was Ali. One side of his face was swollen in a horrible way and his eye was protruding. Right then and there they threw away his clothes because they were so bloody. They offered to take the pellets out of my face but I could not think about myself.> Ali underwent four surgeries in 45 days. Two pellets had torn through his eyeball and had reached the nerve. The doctors told him that they could not take out the pellets. <They did surgery on the retina as well but, in the end, they said that my eye had gone blind,> says Ali. <My damaged eye cannot even see light. Everything is completely black.> He laughs and adds: <For the moment, I am keeping it as a memento.> Ali was hospitalized in Tehran for close to two months. After that, doctors wanted to remove the pellets from Bahareh's and Ali's faces. But the pellets had been lodged too deeply in the flesh and needed surgery to be removed.
In September, Respina, whose name means <Autum in Gilaki>, will turn 10. When Ali talks about Respina's age, he repeats: <The same age as Kian.> And when Bahareh talks about the night of the shooting, she says: <We were lucky that the car windows were pulled up. Otherwise the same calamity that befell Kian might have happened to Respina as well.> They speak many times about November 16, 2022, and what happened to Kian Pirfalak and his family on that day and compare themselves to them. They say that Respina and Kian were of the same age and both their cars were fired on. Respina's father is now blind in one eye and Kian's father has been maimed.
Click here for how kian was killed, full reports, the aftermath and tributes to Kian Pirfalak
Ali is 44 years old and Bahareh is 21. Ali entered the job market after he received his high school diploma and, before being injured, was the sales representative for a line of cosmetics and hygienic products so he knew many pharmacists and doctors. It was through them that he was quickly hospitalized and had four surgeries. Bahareh was an accountant for 13 years. But when Respina was four, she quit working. <Respina's first reaction to my blinded eye was a painting that she did,> says Ali. <We were in Tehran and Respina was back home with the family. She sent them to her mother and her mother showed it to me a week later. Now, we have left Iran for perhaps better medical treatment and, more important than anything else, for the sake of Respina's future.> For a few months after returning home from hospital, Ali hardly went out. Sometimes his friends brought a car to take him for a drive so that he would feel better. But he did not go back to his job and lost his income. To pay for the treatment of Ali's eye, the couple sold their furniture and household items. Ali's voice becomes somber, like he has just become aware he is living the life of a fugitive: <My view of life has changed. Now I have to start all over again from zero. I left Iran for the sake of my family.> What would they say, and what punishment they would demand, if they bring the shooter to a just court? Ali: <We don't want to be like them, so we leave it to God. They say that heaven and hell are both in this world, so he would pay for it in this life. I would tell him: 'We cannot even trample an ant. How could you shoot at a family and then stay there and just look?'> Bahareh: <I am more angry than sad. Ali said that he would let it go but I would not. I want the same thing done to him that he did to us. I still cry when I talk about this incident. You have no idea what we have been through.> Bahareh continues with a lump in her throat: <Perhaps you won't believe it. Since that day we have not listened to a happy song, we have not gone to a party; nothing. My nerves are shattered. After two months in Tehran, I just wanted to return to Rasht, to the same place where they shot us, so that I could believe what had happened to us. And I went. I stood there but I could not do anything. I just kept looking around me.> >>
Source:
https://iranwire.com/en/blinding-as-a-weapon/117496-blinding-as-a-weapon-43-the-blinded-father-whose-child-miraculously-survived/
 

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