“He put himself between the guns and his fourteen-year-old son.”
- Profession
- Avionics specialist, airport engineering
- Killed
- 9 January 2026, Andisheh, Tehran province
- Circumstances
- Shot while shielding his 14-year-old son
- Documented by
- Iran International (Javidnaman)
Who was Ali Tavasoli?
Ali Tavasoli was an avionics specialist with a long career in Iranian aviation engineering — the kind of skilled professional the Islamic Republic has spent two decades losing to emigration. He lived in Andisheh, a planned satellite town west of Tehran built for exactly his demographic: salaried families priced out of the capital.
On 9 January 2026, the second of the Two Nights, he was in the street with his fourteen-year-old son when security forces opened fire. He was shot dead covering the boy with his body. His killing belongs to a pattern documented across the crackdown: a large share of those killed were bystanders, parents and passers-by rather than the “armed rioters” of the state’s account.
The Two Nights: 8–9 January 2026
On the nights of 8 and 9 January 2026 the Islamic Republic answered nationwide protests with sustained live fire in more than eighty towns and cities, under a near-total internet shutdown. Human-rights monitors describe those forty-eight hours as the deadliest episode of protest repression in the country since 1988, and the beginning of what Iranians now call the Crimson Winter.
Because the shutdown cut most of the country off from the outside world, the record of who died was assembled afterwards, name by name, from family testimony, burial permits, hospital documents and mobile phone footage recovered once connectivity returned. Ali Tavasoli is one of those names.
Video and archive
No verified video of Ali Tavasoli is in the public record that this project can confirm. The film below documents the events in which he was killed, and the Javidnaman archive holds the family photographs and case notes for the January 2026 dead.
Iran’s regime caught between new protests and a US military buildup. More documentary footage is collected on the videos page.
Sources
- Iran International · Javidnaman archive
- Iran Human Rights (IHRNGO)
- HRANA — Human Rights Activists News Agency
- Sources and methodology on this site
Why this page exists
Names surface for a few days and then disappear under the next news cycle. This page keeps a dated, citation-ready record of what is known about Ali Tavasoli, with the photograph his family chose to release and links to the monitors who verify such cases. Corrections and additional documentation are welcome through the organisations listed under sources and methodology.
Frequently asked questions
Who was Ali Tavasoli?
Ali Tavasoli, a veteran avionics specialist, was shot dead in Andisheh near Tehran on 9 January 2026 while shielding his fourteen-year-old son with his body.
When and where was Ali Tavasoli killed?
Ali Tavasoli was killed on 9 January 2026 in Andisheh, Tehran province, during the crackdown of 8–9 January 2026 and the weeks that followed.
What were the Two Nights?
The Two Nights are 8 and 9 January 2026, when Iranian security forces used live ammunition against protesters in more than eighty towns and cities under a near-total internet shutdown. Monitors record them as the deadliest 48 hours of protest repression in Iran since 1988.
Who documented Ali Tavasoli’s death?
The case is recorded by independent monitors including Iran Human Rights, HRANA and Hengaw, and in Iran International’s Javidnaman ("immortal names") archive of those killed in the January 2026 uprising.
Related pages
- Nader Mowlavi — another biography from the same period.
- The Two Nights — 8–9 January 2026 in detail.
- The protest record · Faces · Victims database
- All memorial biographies · In Memoriam
