Pouya Bakhtiari's father: I fought on the front lines for five years, and in response, they targeted my son's brain
Manouchehr Bakhtiari, the father of Pouya Bakhtiari, said in an interview with Radio Farda that his 27-year-old son was "shot dead next to his mother" in Mehrshahr, Karaj, on Saturday, November 15.
Pouya Bakhtiari, born in 1992, had gone to a march with her mother and sister on the second day of protests against the increase in gasoline prices. According to her father, she was shot in the skull during the march and died before reaching the hospital.
Pouya Bakhtiari was an electrical engineer who managed a small family workshop. His father says he planned to immigrate to Canada. He was interested in Iranian poetry and history.
Manouchehr Bakhtiari says that at 8:00 AM on November 16, he went to Behesht Sakineh along with a number of other families of the victims and waited until 5:00 PM, but the prosecutor's representative told the families to leave the area so that the prosecutor himself could contact them.
According to Mr. Bakhtiari, the prosecutor contacted him the next day and the body was handed over, and the funeral was held on November 19.
In an interview with Radio Farda, he quoted his wife as saying, "For a moment, I saw the crowd pick up a person's body and I saw that it was my son."
Mr. Bakhtiari also describes his wife's condition as follows: "My wife is lost (mentally) because she has seen with her own eyes the shattered brain of her son."
According to Pouya Bakhtiari's father, he only went to the rally last Saturday to explain why gasoline prices had increased.
At the end of the interview with Radio Farda, he said: "I am proud that my son went to liberate the country. I myself am a businessman and I have not been able to do business for nearly five months. Everything has fallen into disarray."
Mohammad Reza Bakhtiari served in the Iran-Iraq War for five years.
A new round of widespread protests in Iran began in the last days of November with the sudden news of a threefold increase in the price of free gasoline.
The Islamic Republic government responded to these protests on the second day, Saturday, November 15, by cutting off people's online connections and massively suppressing the protesters.
According to estimates by Radio Farda and Amnesty International, the government's response to the protests of dissidents has resulted in at least 143 deaths and more than 4,000 arrests.
Among the victims of the protests were two children, aged 13 and 14.
This is while Iranian officials have been talking about "victory over the evildoers" for nearly a week now.
Source: Radio Farda
