Faragerdi, 44, was shot by security forces near a police station in Pasdaran that night.
Videos verified by Iran International from Pasdaran on Jan. 8 showed wounded protesters lying bloodied on the street as others tried to help, with gunfire audible in the background.
“At first we thought he had been killed in Majidiyeh… but later I learned he went to Pasdaran and was shot there,” his brother Payam Fotouhiehpour told Iran International.
A bullet pierced the right side of his abdomen around 11 p.m., and he was taken to a hospital. He died the following day, Jan. 9, his brother said, but for days the family did not know where he was.
Nearly 12 days later, they learned his body was at Kahrizak — a forensic medical complex south of Tehran where many protest victims were taken.
Footage verified by Iran International from Kahrizak showed families searching among rows of black body bags as the complex filled with protest victims.
Searching through darkness
While Faragerdi joined protests in Tehran, his brother was in the United States, cut off by a nationwide internet blackout imposed on Jan. 8 as demonstrations intensified.
Connectivity dropped to near zero, with tens of millions cut off from global internet access and phone communication severely disrupted. Rights groups said the shutdown aimed to prevent information from leaving the country and obscure the scale of the crackdown.
“I was unaware of everything,” he said.
Only days later, when limited international calls were partially restored, he learned his brother was missing.
“I convinced myself he had gone somewhere with a friend… I told myself he would show up and I would scold him for ten or fifteen minutes.”
He never did.
“Every moment his image was in front of my eyes. I had to go into the storage room or my office to cry so my wife and daughter would not lose themselves.”
On Jan. 20, authorities informed the family that Faragerdi’s body was in Kahrizak. He was buried the following day at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra cemetery.
“These days, images of his childhood come to my mind more and more. Even his childhood voice is in my ears — ‘Dada Payam.’”
Defiance through music
Long before the protests, Faragerdi had resisted Iran’s cultural licensing system, which requires artists to obtain approval from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance before performing or releasing music.
Born on Sept. 7, 1981, he trained in violin from childhood, developing a foundation in classical performance. Though he held a degree in agricultural machinery engineering, music remained central to his life.
“He decided to play the violin professionally - and teach,” his brother said. “He taught my daughter Baran as well.”
Faragerdi played classical music—from Baroque to modern—and had a taste for all types, his brother said: jazz, blues, rock.
But the permit system pushed him away from formal stages.
“He hated that,” his brother said. “It was insulting to him that these creatures would decide what he could do.”
Faragerdi redirected his creativity into craftsmanship. Skilled with tools, he began carving wooden instruments by hand, including ocarinas he built and played himself.
A fellow musician who performed with him, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Faragerdi had once been part of an independent orchestra in Tehran.
“He was part of an independent orchestra—meaning no government body oversaw it. It was private,” the musician said.
Following the 2019 crackdown, during which at least 1,500 protesters were killed, many artists moved away from orchestras requiring ministry permits, the musician added.
'Your bow is still, but not our rage'
Tributes from fellow musicians and students have surfaced across social media.
“We shared a stage, a stand, a country. We played side by side for years, and we still hear your velvet voice in the pauses between movements,” two of his fellow musicians told Iran International.
“On January 8, you were shot for daring to breathe free… They might have silenced your body but not your echo. They killed a musician, not sound itself. Your bow is still, our rage is not.”
Faragerdi’s final Instagram post showed him burning an Iranian banknote bearing the image of Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic, holding it over a toilet before dropping the ashes into the bowl. The clip was captioned: “Let us count the life that has passed,” and set to “The Final Countdown” by Swedish band Europe.
In text messages, his brother shared memories with care.
Asked why Pooya joined the protests, his brother said he was not someone who would stay home while others took to the streets.
“I think on Jan. 8 he fell in love with his people again,” he said. “I wish he had lived to see freedom as well.”
The last sounds Pooya heard were not drawn from his violin, but from chants rising through the streets. Perhaps that was the music he had wanted to hear all along — a chorus of voices rising through the streets.
