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Iran protests: Bereaved families prevented from mourning their loved ones move their memorials online | World News


When protests broke out across Iran in September, the message of 26-year-old Mohammed Hassan Torkaman was one of defiance.

“Personally, if I see even one iconic protest in Babol, I will support it,” he wrote on Twitter.

The nature-loving student was shot dead by security forces during a protest just two days later – protests erupted after the death of a young woman in police custody who was arrested for wearing “improper” headscarf.

Months passed, and his family said they were still harassed by the authorities to silence them about what happened. It’s an experience that human rights experts say is common for those whose loved ones have died as a result of state violence in Iran.

However, for some families like that of Mohammad Hassan, keeping silent is not an option. And social media is providing them with a way to remember and seek justice for the dead.

The Story of Mohammad Hassan Torkaman

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Mohammad Hassan is a typical 26 year old young man. He loves the outdoors and is often seen exploring the forest with his friends. He’s also fascinated by space, covering his home with posters of stars and distant galaxies.

The fluffy white Persian cat Pashmak is his pride and joy.

Mohammed Hassan and his cat Pashmak.  Photo: Twitter
Picture:
Mohammed Hassan and his cat Pashmak. Photo: Twitter

His brother says that he is a calm, kind and ambitious person.

“He has big ideas and wants to make an impact in the future,” his brother said.

Mohammed Hassan moved to Babol five years ago to attend university. So, on September 21, his family in Shahin Shahr, Isfahan, did not know he had taken to the streets to protest.

It was only when they received an anxious phone call from one of his friends that they realized something terrible had happened.

“I was in a terrible state of shock, so I remember everything like a nightmare,” his brother said.

The friend told them that he called Mohammad Hassan after he failed to arrive at his home as scheduled. An unidentified voice finally picked up and said that Mohammad Hassan had been shot.

His father, a veteran and prisoner of war in the Iran-Iraq conflict, was so shocked by the bad news that he suffered a stroke and was admitted to the intensive care unit.

His brother said that when he went to see Mohammad Hassan’s body in the morgue, he saw a bullet wound in the head.

For three days, authorities refused to release the body and did so only on condition that the family keep quiet about where he was shot and hold the funeral under strict security.

But even then, their ordeal is not over.

“The events on Tuesday and Saturday are held under the close supervision of agents,” his brother said.

On the 40th day of the ceremony, the situation escalated.

“They were attacked by security forces, plainclothes militiamen with stun grenades, tear gas, rubber bullets, paintballs and batons. Many were arrested and wounded,” his brother said.

Months have passed since the death of Mohammad Hassan and the memorial gatherings that followed. But relatives say the authorities are still harassing them.

“We were more or less threatened, we were monitored and controlled, some days they watched us, some nights they were stationed near our house,” his brother said.

Digital Memorial

Azadeh Pourzand, a human rights researcher at SOAS University in London, explains that Iranian authorities have a history of treating the families of people murdered by the state in this way because they fear the impact of the killing. .

She told Sky News: “It’s ironic that this regime is so strong with state violence as a repressive regime but is afraid of the corpses it creates.

“It is not new to see rituals for the burial of victims of state violence broken in this way,” she said. It is used as a tool to further harass and silence families.”

For years, this has meant that the only cases that have attracted attention have been those where the victim was known to the public or had a certain social status, Azadeh says. As a result, much is left to human rights organizations such as the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center to document the stories of all the others who have died at the hands of the state.

Since 2002, the center has run the Omid Memorial project, a digital archive of all those killed by the state and acting as an online memorial.

“The mission of the project is to ensure that all victims of state violations of the right to life are memorialized, that society acknowledges the harm done to them and their loved ones, to help start the healing process when there’s no justice,” says Roya Boroumand, who runs the center.

However, the advent of social media means that individuals are now empowered to do this themselves in ways that were not possible before. That means social media sites dedicated to remembering those who have perished in Iran are increasingly popular online.

Many of these accounts are run by bereaved family members. Three months after Mohammad Hassan’s death, two of his relatives set up a Twitter page that posts daily mostly about Mohammad Hassan. They now have a total of more than 27,000 followers.

This digital image of Mohammed Hassan has been shared on pages dedicated to his memory and on social media.
Picture:
This digital image of Mohammed Hassan has been shared on pages dedicated to his memory and on social media

Among the posts were pictures of Mohammad Hassan as a child, as well as his tombstones and memorials. Many include anecdotes about Mohammad Hassan and calls for justice.

The hashtag of Mohammad Hassan’s full name in Farsi, which appears in each post, has been tweeted more than 143,000 times according to data collected by social listening platform TalkWalker.

One of the posts shared in memory of Mohammed Hassan, originally written in Farsi, describes how the cemetery where he was buried was cordoned off by security officers.
Picture:
One of the posts shared in memory of Mohammed Hassan, originally written in Farsi, describes how the cemetery where he was buried was cordoned off by security officers.

“It is my duty and my family’s duty to speak up for my brother’s unjust bloodshed. My father stood in front of the Iraqi soldiers and defended his country. We learned courage from him. “, said Mohammad Hassan’s brother.

Other accounts dedicated to remembering all those who have died have also sprung up.

A page originally created to commemorate the 1,500 protesters who were killed in 2019. The account now creates and shares memorials to those who have died in recent protests and those who have been executed. It has 27,000 followers on Instagram and over 7,000 on Twitter.

“The Iranian government wants these things to go completely unmentioned, not to be heard. The government media completely denies this,” the site’s moderator told Sky News.

“I am the voice of their grieving families,” they said.

“What we are seeing here is grassroots archival and memorial,” says Azadeh Pourzand.

She explained that these memorials also aim to achieve justice for those who have died.

“The ultimate goal is: we will not forget and we will not forgive. We will not let the blood of our loved ones go to waste. We will keep it alive, we will burn it. remember and we will seek justice,” she told Sky News.

The Data and forensics group is a multi-skill unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We collect, analyze and visualize data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite imagery, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world and show what journalism is like.

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