Seyed Ahmad Shokrollahi

Seyed Ahmad Shokrollahi (January 5, 1999 – October 8, 2022)

Seyed Ahmad Shokrollahi, born in January 5, 1999, was a 24-year-old young man from Kordabad and Khorasgan in Isfahan. He was known among friends and family as an energetic athlete, kind-hearted, courageous, and deeply concerned about freedom and justice. According to people close to him, he had participated in protests before, and only days before his death he reportedly told those around him: “If I don’t go to the protests, then who will fight for freedom?”
On October 8, 2022 , during the nationwide protests in Iran, demonstrations were planned across Isfahan. That day, however, Ahmad’s mother was ill, and he decided to take her to Shariati Hospital on his motorcycle. As they approached Azadi Square near Darvazeh Shiraz, they encountered crowded streets filled with protesters and security forces.
Ahmad parked the motorcycle in a nearby alley to keep his mother safe and helped her take shelter inside a half-finished building. He himself remained outside. According to accounts from people close to the family, Ahmad was standing on the sidewalk holding his mobile phone when security forces opened fire. Some believe he was targeted because officers feared he was recording the scene.
Moments later, two bullets struck him in the chest, heart, and forehead. Ahmad died almost instantly.
Despite her illness, his mother ran out of the building after hearing gunshots and people screaming. Witnesses later recalled that a woman in the crowd held up Ahmad’s bloodstained shoe and shouted, “Whoever owns this shoe has been killed.” Ahmad’s mother collapsed on the spot.
People nearby rushed Ahmad to Al-Zahra Hospital in Isfahan, but he had already lost his life.
After his death, security forces reportedly transferred his body without the family’s consent to Bagh-e Rezvan cemetery, where they washed and prepared the body for burial. Authorities allegedly pressured the family to bury him there quietly and immediately. Family members were reportedly told that if they did not comply before dawn, the authorities would bury him wherever they chose.
Despite the threats and pressure, Ahmad’s relatives refused to give in. They insisted on burying him at Imamzadeh Mohammad Bagher Khiyadan in Khorasgan, among his own community. Even then, the atmosphere surrounding the funeral was heavily controlled by security forces. The family was not allowed to hold a public mourning ceremony, and Ahmad was buried quietly during the night. According to relatives, members of the family were threatened into silence, and even his sister’s phone was confiscated for weeks.
The pressure on the family continued after the burial. During the seventh-day and fortieth-day memorial ceremonies, clashes reportedly broke out between mourners and security forces. Protest slogans such as “Woman, Life, Freedom” and “Death to the Islamic Republic” were heard around his grave, and reports say several more people were killed during those confrontations.
Ahmad’s family had engraved the phrase “From the blood of the youth of the nation, tulips have grown” on his gravestone — a symbolic expression long associated in Iran with those killed in struggles for freedom. Later, authorities reportedly removed and confiscated the gravestone.
Friends and relatives say Ahmad often told his parents, “I will make you proud.” He loved music, especially songs by Shadmehr Aghili, and jokingly told his friends that “the world owes me a Shadmehr concert.”
After his death, a video of Ahmad’s father sitting beside his grave in falling snow circulated online. Speaking through grief, he explained that Ahmad had loved snow deeply and became happy whenever it snowed. His father said that for years it had not snowed in Isfahan — but after Ahmad was gone, the snow finally returned.