Nikta Esfandani
نیکتا اسفندانی
2005–2019 · 7 years ago
- Born
- 12 May 2005
- Taken
- 16 November 2019
- Age
- only 14 years old
- From
- Tehran, Tehran
Kept on this phone only. Nothing is sent.
Their life
Nikta Esfandani was born in Tehran on 12 May 2005, the younger of two sisters, and lived with her family in southern Mehrabad. Alongside school she gave herself to theatre and acted in several stage plays. She had just started guitar lessons, loved rap music, and dressed in hip-hop style.
People close to her describe a lively, brave girl who stood up to bullying and injustice, opposed compulsory hijab and fought for her personal freedom. She did not let other people's judgement stop her, and she was eager to take part in the life around her.
How the regime took them
On 15 November 2019 Nikta told her family she was going to meet a friend, and she did not come home. A hospital worker later said two heavily built plainclothes men brought her in on 16 November, semi-conscious, holding her up under the arms. Her family found her body at the coroner's office, with pellet wounds to her temple and forehead from shooting in Tehran's Sattarkhan area.
Officials recorded food and medication poisoning, and intelligence agents made her father give a state TV interview saying she was not political before her body was released. She was buried on 20 November, aged 14.
