Arsham Ebrahimi's uncle: We paid for the system, but our innocent child was killed

Arsham Ebrahimi was one of those killed in Isfahan on November 15. His father was a prisoner of war in Iraq for eight years. Arsham's uncle has many unanswered questions, which he shared with DW Persian.

Arsham Ebrahimi was 21 years old and had a dream of studying dentistry. However, he was shot in the back on November 15.

Behzad Ebrahimi, Arsham's uncle, tells Deutsche Welle Farsi that his nephew was not at all political. He was on his way home when he came across the chaos in Isfahan on November 15. He got stuck in a traffic jam caused by street protests and, on the advice of his father, who was worried about him, called him and left the car in the middle of the chaos and walked home.

But he never arrived home.

Four days later, on Wednesday, November 19, his body was handed over to his family with the promise of a night burial.

Arsham's father was 17 years old when, despite his parents' opposition, he went to the front of the Iran-Iraq War and was captured that same year. He was a prisoner of war in Iraq for eight years. Arsham's uncle says that the scars of the Kabul and torture are still on his brother's body.

Behzad Ebrahimi, Arsham's uncle, also went to the front when he was 16. He says, "We have paid for this system. We have paid for our country. It was not right for our innocent child to be killed like this."

He recalls the time when he and his brother (Arsham's father) went to the front without his parents' permission to defend their homeland. He believes that he cannot question this past, which was full of efforts to preserve the country: "We cannot question our past, but we do not approve of the current performance of the system either."

Behzad Ebrahimi says nothing is in its place now. He says, "They have thrown iron shavings in front of the carpenter and wood in front of the blacksmith. This must change, it must be corrected."

He says that due to his job (producing building stones), he deals with people a lot and has witnessed what economic pressure and high prices have done to people: "Those who have it, even if gasoline costs ten thousand tomans, they won't be bothered, but ordinary people would have a hard time even with gasoline costing one thousand tomans, let alone now that it has tripled."

However, he believes that the people do not want to change the system: "A lot of blood has been shed for this system, if the system is to be changed, a lot of blood will be shed again, a lot of damage will be caused again. The people do not want this. We want to reform this system."

Arsham's parents only had one son and two daughters. His uncle says the condition of these parents is beyond description. He says he has no doubt that many innocent people have been killed during the recent protests, "our Arsham being an example."

Now they have hired a lawyer to file a complaint. Who? He doesn't know. He says it's not yet clear to us how this happened and who fired the shots, but he immediately says that the treatment of the protesters in the recent events was not the right treatment at all.

Among his words lie dozens of questions: Why should the son of his veteran brother, who was held captive in Iraq for eight years, be killed by the security forces of the “military” that he and his brother have spent so much money to protect? Why should his young nephew be buried at night? Why should the protests of the people who have seen with their own eyes the suffering of inflation and high prices be answered with bullets? Why should this be the future of the military for which blood has been shed?

Arsham Ebrahimi's uncle, however, has no answers to these questions. He only says, "Our family did not fall apart with my brother's eight-year captivity, but with Arsham's death, we did."

Source: DW