Memorials
In-depth biographies of people executed or killed in custody by the Islamic Republic of Iran across 47 years — from the firing squads of 1979 to the secret hangings of the 2020s. The chronological list records the names; these pages tell the stories.
Habib Elghanian
Iranian-Jewish industrialist and community leader
“On 9 May 1979, two months after the Islamic Revolution, Iran’s most prominent Jewish industrialist was put up against a wall and shot. His killing was the signal flare of what followed.”
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Nader Jahanbani
Lieutenant-general, Imperial Iranian Air Force
“He had built Iran’s aerobatic squadron and trained a generation of fighter pilots. Five weeks after the revolution, he was led to a school rooftop in Tehran and shot.”
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Farrokhroo Parsa
Physician, educator, first woman cabinet minister of Iran
“She had been Iran’s first woman cabinet minister. A year after the revolution, she was sewn into a sack and shot — for, the court said, “corrupting the earth” by removing the veil from schoolgirls.”
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Mona Mahmudnizhad
Iranian Baháʼí schoolgirl
“She was seventeen. Her crime, the court said, was teaching children. The night she was hanged, she asked to kiss the rope before placing it round her own neck.”
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Zahra Kazemi
Iranian-Canadian photojournalist
“She had photographed grieving families outside Evin Prison. Nineteen days later, the prison’s own intelligence officers killed her.”
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Navid Afkari
Iranian wrestler
“He was 27, a champion wrestler from Shiraz, and his appeal was still pending. They hanged him before dawn anyway.”
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