Iran International
A 17-year-old protester wounded during Iran’s January protests was later killed after being taken into custody by security forces, according to testimony and forensic analysis gathered by the Iran Human Rights Documentation Center (IHRDC).
Human rights investigators say evidence indicates Sam Afshari was alive when security forces detained him in the city of Karaj, but was later killed by a gunshot wound to the head consistent with an execution carried out after his arrest.
“The bullet entered through the back of his head and exited through his face," Shahin Milani, IHRDC Executive Director told Iran International.
"The injury he sustained during the protests was not the shot that killed him,” Milani said.
Before leaving to join the protests, Sam sent a final message to his father on Jan 7.
“Dad, don’t tell mom anything. I’m going to fight for my rights. Iran is in danger. Please don’t tell my mother.”
His father, Parviz Afshari, who lives in Germany, would spend days searching for answers after his son disappeared.
According to Milani, testimony gathered from the family indicates that Sam’s initial injury during the protests was not fatal.
Residents living nearby Taleghani Square in Karaj saw that Sam had been wounded and attempted to bring him inside to help. Before they could do so, security forces arrived and dragged him away while he was still alive, according to his father’s account.
"The inhuman repressive forces dragged my son," Parviz told IRHDC in a video recording.
After that, he vanished.
“When his family eventually recovered his body, it was clear he had been shot again,” Milani said.
Where the fatal shooting occurred remains unclear. Sam’s father received conflicting accounts — one suggesting it may have happened at a medical facility and another claiming detainees were shot while being transported. Investigators say those details cannot yet be independently confirmed, but the available evidence indicates he was killed after arrest.
Sam's father described him as an exceptionally talented teenager — a computer science prodigy, a competitive swimming champion and fluent in multiple languages.
Milani said interviewing the father was deeply personal, underscoring how the profile of victims in Iran has changed over time.
“The father is nearly my age,” Milani said. “It forces you to realize that the young people being killed today are children who could have been our own.”
Sam Afshari’s case is part of a broader pattern emerging from Iran’s January crackdown, during which students and minors were among those killed. An Iranian teachers’ union has published the names of roughly 200 students killed during the protests, describing the list as both a record of loss and a demand for accountability.
At least 24 children, including a three-year-old, were killed by direct fire from security forces during Iran’s nationwide protests, according to the HANA Human Rights Organization. The group said it confirmed the identities of the children through on-the-ground research and cross-checking multiple sources.
HANA said the shooting of children was not an isolated incident but part of a systematic pattern, with gunfire in many documented cases directed at vital parts of the body.
For Sam's father - the loss is already painfully clear — a teenager who left home believing he was fighting for his future and never returned.
Sam had been preparing to join him in Germany later this year — a plan that ended before it could begin.
The trials were presided over by Judge Abolghasem Salavati, head of Branch 15 of Tehran’s Revolutionary Court, who is widely known for handing down severe sentences in protest-related and political cases, the sources said.
Salavati has been holding simultaneous virtual hearings in which detainees are tried in groups of 14, according to the sources.
Among those sentenced is Abolfazl Karimi, a detained protester who the sources said had told his family in a phone call that he had been subjected to forced confessions under beatings and torture.
Karimi is the father of a young child and previously worked as a motorcycle courier in eastern Tehran.
He was arrested on January 6 while returning from work in Tehran’s Hengam neighborhood, where he encountered two injured women whose legs had been hit by gunfire from security forces, the sources said.
When he went to assist them, officers shot his leg with pellet rounds and arrested him along with the two wounded women, the sources added.
After about a month in detention in Greater Tehran Prison, he was recently transferred along with around 50 other protesters to Ghezel Hesar Prison, the sources said.
In a later phone call, Karimi told his family he had been tortured without medical treatment for his wounds and, while blindfolded, was forced to sign papers containing confessions against himself, according to the sources.
In recent days, Iran’s judiciary has intensified the process of trying protesters detained during the nationwide protests and issuing death sentences, the sources said.
On Monday Tehran Revolutionary Court, also presided over by Salavati, sentenced 19-year-old Mohammadamin Biglari to death on the charge of “enmity against God,” and the case has been referred to the Supreme Court, the sources said.
Biglari was arrested on January 8 on Tehran’s Damavand Street.
His mother is deceased, and his father was unaware of his fate for weeks, searching for him among bodies in Kahrizak before authorities informed him after three weeks that his son had been detained, the sources said.
Separately, on Sunday, the judiciary announced the first hearing session for three detained protesters—Ehsan Hosseinipour Hesarloo, Matin Mohammadi and Erfan Amiri—on charges including allegedly setting fire to Seyed al-Shohada Mosque in Pakdasht and alleged participation in murder.
Other charges against the three were announced as “assembly and collusion to appear and act against the country’s internal security following calls on hostile social media, particularly the US president and the Zionist regime (Israel)…” according to the judiciary-affiliated Mizan News Agency.
Norway-based rights group Hengaw said the case against the three was marred by due process violations.
"The hearing was held despite reports that the detainees have been denied basic rights since their arrest, including access to a lawyer of their choice and contact with their families. They were subjected to intense pressure and torture during detention and compelled to provide forced confessions," Hengaw said.
Tens of thousands of people have been arrested during the nationwide protests, many facing heavy charges, the sources said.
Some families have reported being pressured by security bodies to refrain from speaking to media or publicly discussing the cases of detained relatives, the sources added.
Within hours of the badges disappearing, accounts styled as satirical versions of Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and senior official Ali Larijani began drawing thousands of views and followers.
One parody account using Larijani’s name published a post arguing that anyone who believes a meaningful agreement can be reached with the Islamic Republic is naïve.
Another account in Araghchi’s name, which was suspended later, published the monarchist slogan “Long live the King.”
X also removed blue ticks from accounts attributed to Judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei and parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, according to a review of the platform.
An account using the name of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei posted a message suggesting he seek refuge with the Taliban. “If our friendly neighboring brothers, the Taliban, kindly issue six-month tourist visas, the situation is dire,” the post read.
Separately, parody accounts posing as parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and late Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani posted mocking replies in comment threads.
One fake Ghalibaf account warned the United States that if it repeated a hostile act “once more, it will become twice,” mimicking official rhetoric in an exaggerated, satirical tone.
A parody account impersonating former president Ebrahim Raisi posted a Valentine’s Day message lamenting that “no one sent us a teddy bear,” while another billed itself as “the first president in Iran’s history to be eaten by a bear” – a darkly comic nod to the online satire that has persisted around his death.
Most of the new profiles visibly carry the label “Parody account,” a designation that appears when a user identifies their profile as satirical.
Under X rules, accounts that present themselves as real individuals without clearly disclosing their unofficial nature can face suspension, prompting many users to add the parody label to reduce the risk of removal.
A parody account created in Khamenei’s name drew nearly 9,000 followers within hours. Similar accounts impersonating Araghchi and Larijani quickly grew to more than 20,000 and about 12,000 followers, respectively.
Official silence, media warning
Islamic Republic officials have not formally addressed the wave of impersonations. The Guards-linked Tasnim website wrote that following the removal of blue verification badges, several fake accounts misusing Larijani’s name and image had become active.
The episode follows earlier disputes between Iranian authorities and the platform. In November, X introduced a location feature showing the approximate origin of posts.
The update exposed numerous pro-government figures and individuals tied to the Islamic Republic posting from inside Iran, enjoying a tiered, privileged internet, where most users must bypass state restrictions on social media through tools such as VPNs.
The platform also replaced the Islamic Republic flag emoji with the pre-1979 Lion and Sun emblem for accounts set to Iran, prompting criticism from pro-government users and praise from some opposition voices.
