Fouad Ghadimi

Fouad Ghadimi (Persian: فؤاد قدیمی; also Foad or Fouad Qadimi) was a dry-cleaner from Divandarreh in Kurdistan province. Kurdpa and Radio Zamaneh give his date of birth as 1 Esfand 1361 (20 February 1983); BBC Persian, Kurdpa and Amnesty International give his age as forty and Hengaw as thirty-nine. Kurdpa names his parents as Abdollah and Hadiseh Safaei. He was the second child of his family and left school after the fifth grade because he wanted to be independent early; he learned tailoring from his maternal uncle and then dry-cleaning and invisible mending, and in 1379 his father set him up in his own dry-cleaning shop, which he ran for some twenty years. He was married with two sons, Kian and Kawan, aged about seventeen and eight; the elder was living with an uncle in Tehran and playing in Esteghlal's youth ranks. People close to him described a good-humoured man, known across the small town, who loved nature, hiking, swimming and football, hoped his son would become a footballer and helped people in need without telling his family.

According to a source close to the family who spoke to BBC Persian, on 26 Shahrivar 1401 he travelled to Saqqez for the funeral of Mahsa (Zhina) Amini. Two days later, on Monday 28 Shahrivar (19 September 2022), protests broke out in Divandarreh and security forces fired tear gas and pellets at the crowd. While he was handing out masks from his shop, he was shot from an IRGC watchtower, at about 11:45 a.m. according to Kurdpa: one round struck the right side of his body near the kidney and another his left hand. Kurdpa describes the rounds as sniper fire; Radio Zamaneh's source and Hengaw say he was hit by Kalashnikov fire in the abdomen and wrist.

People carried him away for help, but a car with three masked men took him by force and left him by the kerb opposite the hospital, where neighbours found him bleeding and took him inside Imam Khomeini Hospital in Divandarreh. Radio Zamaneh's source said he was in surgery for about six hours and lost a kidney. His father, Abdollah Ghadimi, a retired IRGC employee, told the governor: "Just as you gave the order to shoot him, give the order for a helicopter to take him to Sanandaj." He was flown to Kowsar Hospital in Sanandaj. Kurdpa writes that security agents interfered with his treatment in both hospitals and deleted photographs taken for his medical file. He regained consciousness and spoke with his family, and asked one of his brothers to look after his two sons. He died at about 4 a.m. on Wednesday 30 Shahrivar 1401 (21 September 2022). Radio Zamaneh's source said the death certificate recorded the cause of death as "unknown".

The family was pressed to say on state television that he had not been killed by security forces, and refused. His father was then summoned to the governor's office and made to give an interview blaming "counter-revolutionaries", under the threat that his other sons and grandchildren were in danger and as a condition for receiving the body. His brother Omid Ghadimi later said in an Instagram video that the family had not allowed the broadcast and that his father's words had been censored. Security forces chose the grave themselves, in the old cemetery of Divandarreh, against the family's wishes, and buried him at about 3 a.m. under heavy guard; only close relatives were allowed, though Radio Zamaneh's source said around three hundred people came.

Kurdpa reports that agents watched his grave and that the headstone reading "Martyr Fouad" was replaced four times. Despite repeated calls from security bodies, his fortieth-day memorial on 5 Aban 1401 drew a large crowd chanting "A martyr never dies"; security forces fired tear gas and pellets, and several people were wounded and arrested. His brother Omid was arrested on 16 Shahrivar 1402, held in the Shahramfar security detention centre in Sanandaj for twenty days and released on bail; on 10 Farvardin 1403 the Divandarreh Revolutionary Court sentenced him to forty months in prison and a fine, which an appeals court reduced on 26 Shahrivar 1403 to a one-year suspended sentence and a fine. Amnesty International's 2026 report Lives Cut Brutally Short records Foad Ghadimi as 40, shot on 19 September 2022 in Divandareh.