Arvin Salemi Rad
آروین سالمیراد
2009–2026
- Born
- 15 April 2009
- Taken
- 23 January 2026
- Age
- only 16 years old
- From
- Bushehr, Bushehr
Kept on this phone only. Nothing is sent.
Their life
Arvin was born in Bushehr in April 2009 into an Arab family, the only son among three sisters. He was in the eleventh grade, studying cabinetmaking at a vocational school, and after school he worked at his father's fast-food place and his uncle's ice-cream cafe, often from five in the afternoon until one in the morning.
Football was his life. He started at nine, played for Fajr and several youth teams in Bushehr, trained in the gym, and wanted nothing more than to turn professional; a week after 8 January he was due to travel to Dubai to take the next step. He loved motorcycles and dreamed of buying his favourite bike, and he wanted the first house or car he ever bought to be for his mother.
If we don't go, who's going to defend it?
How the regime took them
On the evening of 8 January 2026, on Ashuri Street in Bushehr, forces firing from a Basij base shot at the protesters. Arvin stepped forward to shield a friend and was shot in the head at close range; his skull was shattered. Bystanders took him to the Khalij-e Fars hospital in a pickup truck, where at first no one would take him in, until a surgeon agreed to operate. After four hours of surgery he never woke up.
He lay in a coma for 16 days and died at 11:30 a.m. on 23 January. The regime left his name off its official list of the dead.
