Payman Ghadiri, a 45-year-old engineer and father of one from Qarchak in Tehran province, who was shot in the head during the days of the January uprising, died on 14 October 2026 after nine months in a coma. Prince Reza Pahlavi's media office published a memorial for him, registering his name among the fallen of the January uprising.
According to Prince Reza Pahlavi's office, government agents raided Payman Ghadiri's home in Qarchak on 9 January 2026, shot him in the head and took his child hostage to force the family into silence. He had been in a coma since that day and never regained consciousness. The memorial describes Payman Ghadiri as a charitable man and a supporter of orphaned children.
Families forced into silence
Taking a child hostage to silence a family, if it happened as Prince Reza Pahlavi's office says, is consistent with a pattern repeatedly reported in the months after the January uprising: pressure from the security forces on the families of the fallen not to speak to the media, not to hold memorial ceremonies and to keep the circumstances of their loved ones' deaths hidden. This pressure is why news of the deaths of many of those wounded in those days has been published months late.
As of publication, the Islamic Republic has offered no explanation of the shooting of Payman Ghadiri or his death, and no other independent source has confirmed the details of this account.
The January uprising and its fallen
The January 2026 uprising was accompanied by a bloody crackdown by government forces in cities across Iran. New reports are still uncovering the scale of that crackdown, among them snipers deployed on rooftops in Semnan. The families of the fallen remain under pressure; the family of Alireza Raisi, an executed protester from Isfahan, were able to visit his grave only after 12 days.
Payman Ghadiri was shot at his home in Qarchak on 9 January and died after nine months in a coma.
Comments
No comments yet. Be the first.