Erfan Gholipour

Erfan Gholipour (Persian: عرفان قلی‌پور; also written Qolipour) was a 28-year-old man from Babol in Mazandaran Province. Friends remembered him in memorial posts as a passionate supporter of the Esteghlal (Taj) football club.

On the night of Thursday, 18 Dey 1404 (8 January 2026), he joined protesters near Owqaf Square in Babol, opposite the city police station. Memorial accounts gathered by the 2026 IranMassacre documentation project say he was the first person to go inside Babol Police Station 11 that night to defend the people, and that he was killed by direct fire from government forces. Hengaw Organization for Human Rights and Hyrcani Human Rights Media verified his death from a wound to the head: their first reports described a blow to the head, while later accounts describe a gunshot to the head. His friend Mohammad Ebrahim Dadashi, 25, went into the police compound to help him after he was wounded and was shot in the face there.

Hengaw reported that his family was forced to pay about 900 million tomans to retrieve his body. Memorial posts say that under pressure and threats the family was also made to announce the cause of death as a heart attack. The Iranian government's own published list of January 2026 dead includes him with his father's name, Moslem, and HRANA's Crimson Winter tally lists his death in Babol as confirmed. Most memorial posts give his age as 28 and one gives 26; his recorded birth date of 29 April 1997 matches 28.

Hengaw listed him among fourteen newly confirmed victims from Gilan and Mazandaran, including Mazyar Samimi, Erfan Azordeh, Reza Karimifar and Samira Khani, shot with live ammunition in cities including Rasht, Rudbar, Babol, Manjil, Sari, Chalus and Ramsar.