Erfan Khazaei

Erfan Khazaei (Persian: عرفان خزائی; also written Khazaee or Khazaie) was a 30-year-old Kurdish man from Kangavar in Kermanshah Province who lived in Shahriar, west of Tehran. Kurdpa and Persian Wikipedia record that he was born on 11 Khordad 1371 (1 June 1992), the son of Hatam; he was single, had completed lower secondary school and worked at a household appliance shop. A person close to him told Kurdpa that the killing of Zhina (Mahsa) Amini had deeply upset him and that, like many others, he went into the street to make his protest heard.

On Wednesday 30 Shahrivar 1401 (21 September 2022), during the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in Shahriar, he was shot by security forces in the Kohneh Shahriar area near the produce market. Kurdpa, citing an informed source, and the Hana Human Rights Organization say he was hit in the neck by a handgun round fired from less than ten metres away and died several hours later at Imam Sajad Hospital; Kurdpa adds that the shot came from behind, and Persian Wikipedia says a passer-by drove him to hospital in his own car. His brother Ehsan told Radio Farda that forces fired a live round into his neck from less than ten metres. Hengaw, citing a relative, reported that he was hit in the head and died at once. The forensic report seen by Kurdpa gives the cause of death as a high-velocity projectile, haemorrhagic shock and lung injury.

Kurdpa reports that the family received his body from the Kahrizak forensic centre two days later and that the burial took place under heavy security. He was buried in Shahriar, far from his birthplace, and Hengaw reported that security forces attacked those attending his fortieth-day memorial on 9 Aban 1401 (31 October 2022).

On 19 Shahrivar 1402 (10 September 2023), shortly before the first anniversary of the uprising, his father Hatam, his mother Neda Kargar and his brothers Ehsan and Yazdan were summoned to the Intelligence Department in Shahriar, according to Kurdpa, HRANA and the Kurdistan Human Rights Network; Kurdpa said they were warned over their pursuit of justice. Yazdan wrote that he hoped the person who shot Erfan had been found.

Amnesty International's 2026 report Lives Cut Brutally Short lists him with a photograph, aged 30, killed in Shahriar on 21 September 2022. The Iran Human Rights Society's list of 662 names (no. 47) and its consolidated list, Hengaw's list of 134 Kurdish dead (no. 24), the NCRI's Persian list of 185 names (no. 44) and list of 647 names (no. 44), and Persian Wikipedia's table of the 1401 dead also record his death in Shahriar. His death certificate was among those published by the 1500tasvir account in April 2023.