Before being shot dead in Tehran, 17-year-old Sina Ashkbousi looked at his mother and told her several times: “Mom, we’ve won. They’re not going to shoot us.” On the night of January 8, the first day of the mass protests by Iranians against the Islamic Republic, this shy and reserved high school student, a huge Harry Potter fan, took to the streets with his parents. Along with around 20 other young people, Ashkbousi stood in the front row. “They were all chanting slogans,” said his aunt Samira, who lives abroad and prefers not to give her last name. “They were all happy. At 10 pm, Sina told his mother: ‘Mom, take care of Dad.'”

Then gunfire erupted. Ashkbousi’s mother lost sight of her only son in the agitated crowd. On the ground, a trail of blood stretched for about 100 meters. She called him on his phone. No answer. Eventually, someone else picked up: “Come to the hospital opposite the protest site. Your son has been shot.” Ashkbousi’s parents rushed there and found the lifeless body of their son. Inside the facility, they saw about 100 bodies. Ashkbousi was not returned to his family until five days later, in the morgue of the Kahrizak forensic center, located in the south of the Iranian capital.

“In the three warehouses in Kahrizak, there were bodies piled on top of each other. Bullets had pierced Sina’s heart and abdomen. The men in our family were forced to sign a document promising to remain silent about the burial. What I remember most is his innocent smile,” said Samira, struggling to speak of him in the past tense. “He was buried in a place I do not know, outside Tehran.”

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