Mani Safarpour

Mani Safarpour (Persian: مانی صفرپور) was an 18-year-old student from the village of Lafmajan near Lahijan in Gilan Province, who lived in Tehran. He was born in 1386 (2007), and one memorial post noted that he had turned 18 less than a month before he was killed. Friends remembered that in every photo of him he was smiling.

On the evening of Thursday, 18 Dey 1404 (8 January 2026), during the nationwide protests, he was shot with live ammunition by government forces on Salsabil Street in Tehran. According to people close to him, he was out with his father and had gone to help a girl who had been hit by pellets when he was shot. Iran International, Independent Persian and the Abdorrahman Boroumand Center all record him as 18; an early Hengaw report gave his age as 26 and the date as 9 January. HRANA lists him among its confirmed victims in Tehran, and his name appears, as Mani Safarpour Chafeli, in the list of the dead published by the government in February 2026. Hengaw listed him among six people confirmed killed in Tehran, including Alireza Rahimi and Amirhossein Sohrabi.

A video of his father holding the body bag at the Kahrizak forensic centre and sobbing "Mani, my son, you go, I will come" became one of the most widely shared images of those days. He was buried in the cemetery of Lafmajan, where his 40th-day memorial was held with a large crowd and the traditional Gilaki Drom dance.