Sepehr Shokri: Sepehr-e Bâbâ, Where Are You?

This record has to begin with an admission, because the alternative is to invent. Almost nothing about Sepehr Shokri's life has entered the public record. His occupation, his education, whether he had brothers or sisters, whether he was in the protest or walking through it — none of it is documented in any source that can be checked. The internet blackout that began on the evening of 8 January 2026 saw to that. What survives of him is his name, his city, his age, the manner of his death, and his father.

That is not a failure of the record. It is what the record looks like when a state controls the bodies, the morgues and the network at the same time. The song is called *Sepehr-e Bâbâ — kojâyi, Bâbâ?* — "Sepehr, my boy, where are you?" — and that turns out to be exactly the right title, because the question is the thing that was preserved.

## The eighth of January

Protests had begun in Iran on 28 December 2025 with strikes in Tehran's Grand Bazaar over the collapse of the rial and roughly forty-two per cent inflation. On 8 January the exiled crown prince Reza Pahlavi called for coordinated nationwide demonstrations. The turnout was the largest in the Islamic Republic's history, in all thirty-one provinces and around two hundred cities. Security forces answered with live ammunition at scale, and that evening the authorities imposed a near-total internet and mobile blackout.

Sepehr Shokri, twenty-five years old, from Tehran, was shot and killed by government forces on 8 January 2026. Hengaw, which named him in its documentation, records that he was directly shot. No source gives the street, the hour, or the wound.

## Kahrizak

His body was not released. His father, Esmail Shokri, searched hospitals, morgues and detention facilities for roughly a week. He then filmed himself walking through the forensic medicine facility at Kahrizak in south Tehran, opening body bags one after another and calling out his son's name.

A version of that footage, around twelve minutes long, began circulating on 24 January 2026. It became one of the defining documents of the crackdown — not because of what it proves about any single death, but because of what it shows about the machinery: a father permitted to find his own son only by looking. Sepehr Shokri was buried at Behesht-e Zahra.

## The other Sepehr

Iran's state broadcaster responded to the video in a way that is itself worth recording. IRIB aired a segment featuring the family of a different young man who had also been killed — Sepehr Ebrahimi, nineteen, an amateur boxer shot in Andisheh — in which they stated on camera that the viral video was fabricated and that their son had not been a protester.

Factnameh, Iran International and IranWire treated this as a coerced-interview operation that exploited the coincidence of a first name. A fact-checking journalist at BBC Persian published identifying photographs confirming that the man in the video was Esmail Shokri, searching for Sepehr Shokri. Two families, two dead sons, one first name, and a broadcaster that used the second to try to erase the first.

## What is established

- A man named Sepehr Shokri from Tehran was killed during the January 2026 protests — documented by Hengaw and reported by Iran International, Al Jazeera and Factnameh, with a standalone Persian Wikipedia article. - His father, Esmail Shokri, searched for him for about a week and filmed himself opening body bags at the Kahrizak forensic facility. He was buried at Behesht-e Zahra, Tehran. - IRIB aired a segment with the family of a different victim, Sepehr Ebrahimi, to discredit the video; BBC Persian's fact-checking desk confirmed the video's true identity through photographs. - On 21 March 2026 Esmail Shokri was arrested at his son's grave by plainclothes agents.

## What is disputed, or not established

- His age — 25 per Hengaw and Iran International; 19 per Al Jazeera, which most likely absorbed Sepehr Ebrahimi's age during the name confusion. 25 is better supported. - The exact date — 8 January per Hengaw and Iran International; 9 January per two memorial archives. The body was not recovered for a week, so an exact date may not be establishable. - The mechanism of death — only Hengaw states he was directly shot; other sources describe him only as a protest victim. - Everything else about his life — occupation, education, political affiliation — is not documented in any checkable source.

## After

By February 2026 his name was being spoken at fortieth-day mourning ceremonies across the country. On or around 19 March 2026, security agents came to the gravesite and assaulted mourners, including Sepehr's mother; two days later Esmail Shokri was arrested at the grave, reportedly at gunpoint — for having published the video of himself looking for his son.

On 23 January 2026 the UN Human Rights Council adopted a resolution extending the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran for two years, mandating it to investigate the crackdown that began on 28 December 2025.

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*Documented by Hengaw, Iran International, Al Jazeera and Factnameh. This record separates what independent sources establish from what is contested or unknown. Corrections and additional documentation are welcome at pulsepersia.com/contact.*