Officials offer gift cards to families of those killed in protests

Commanders from the Revolutionary Guards and provincial officials in northern Golestan province have visited the homes of some people killed during January protests, offering fifty-million-rial gift cards ($33), according to messages sent to Iran International.

In recent weeks, delegations of six to ten officials went to several homes in Gorgan, presented the government’s account of the events and warned families about publicizing information. At the end of the visits, they left behind a folder containing a certificate of appreciation and one or two bank gift cards, witnesses said.

Families describe the gesture as humiliating and view it as an attempt to buy silence, contain protests and deter legal action over how their children were killed, according to the messages.

Heydari was injured by live ammunition in his leg during protests on January 8 and taken away alive by security forces. After 33 days of complete silence about his whereabouts, his body was handed to his family on February 9.

Authorities told his father by phone that his son had “died during the protests” and that his body had been kept in morgue for over a month.

Family members who saw the body dispute that account.

They told Iran International that signs of severe beating, a broken nose and, most critically, a bullet wound to the left side of his forehead indicate he was tortured during detention and later killed with a close-range shot to the head.

Two additional visible signs, they said, strongly suggested that only days – not weeks – had passed since his death.

Live fire and arrest

Heydari was born on March 27, 2005, in the village of Virani in Shandiz and lived in Mashhad. He worked in a woodworking shop. Had he not been killed in mid-February, he would have turned 21 within weeks.

On the evening of January 8, he joined thousands of others protesting on Haft-e Tir Boulevard in Mashhad. Witnesses said security forces began firing at crowds gathered near the local police station around 9 p.m.

A protester who survived the crackdown told Iran International that a live round struck Heydari in the leg early in the shooting.

“He lost balance and fell. There was heavy bleeding. We couldn’t pull him back,” the witness said. “Security forces reached him, lifted him and dragged him away.”

Heydari’s mobile phone fell from his pocket as he collapsed. The witness retrieved it before fleeing.

33 days of enforced disappearance

From the moment of his arrest until the early hours of February 9, his family received no official information about his location, medical condition or legal status.

After learning from the witness that Heydari had been wounded and detained, the family searched for him across hospitals, detention centers, courts and morgues. Authorities – including the Intelligence Ministry, the Revolutionary Guards’ intelligence unit and local police – denied knowledge of his case.

The systematic denial of information about a detainee seized in plain sight amounts to enforced disappearance under international law. In practice, it left the family in prolonged uncertainty, cut off from any legal recourse and unaware of whether he was alive or dead.

Such denial also removes scrutiny – a condition that rights groups say can facilitate torture and extrajudicial killing.

The call from the morgue

In the early hours of February 9, officers from the investigative unit in the Shandiz area phoned Heydari’s father and instructed him to go to the Behesht-e Reza cemetery in Mashhad to identify and collect his son’s body.

When the father asked what had happened, he was told his son had “died during the protests” and that his body had been in morgue for more than a month.

Family members who viewed the body said there were visible bruises and a fractured nose, consistent with severe beating. The gunshot wound to the forehead, they said, appeared to have been fired from close range, likely with a handgun.

They also pointed to physical details suggesting that Heydari had been alive long after his January 8 arrest. He had visited a barber that Thursday and had only faint stubble at the time of his detention, they said, but facial hair had grown noticeably by the time his body was returned. They added that the body’s condition did not align with a death that had occurred a month earlier.

Together, they say, these signs contradict the official explanation and indicate he was killed days before his body was released.

Burial under watch

Heydari was buried in his hometown of Virani. The funeral drew large numbers of residents, alongside a significant presence of plainclothes security agents.

Agents attempted to detain several participants during the burial but were prevented by resistance from mourners, according to attendees. The following day, security forces warned the family against holding a memorial ceremony. The gathering ultimately proceeded after mediation by relatives.

Silence and risk

Shahram Sadidi, a Mashhad-born political activist based in the UK who first publicized Heydari’s disappearance, told Iran International that public unawareness may have made it easier for authorities to act without scrutiny.

“If news of his detention had spread earlier, public pressure might have prevented this outcome,” he said.

Field reports, Sadidi said, indicate that more than a thousand people – possibly several thousand – were detained in Mashhad during and after the January 8 protests, with little information released about most of them.

“Families are often threatened that speaking out will harm their loved ones,” he said. “Fear keeps many silent, and that silence creates space for abuse.”

Heydari’s case, marked by live-fire injury, disappearance and a fatal gunshot in custody, underscores the risks facing detainees held beyond public view – and the consequences of 33 days in which no authority acknowledged where he was.

The USS Gerald R. Ford will take at least a week to reach the Middle East, an official told Reuters on Friday.

The last time two US aircraft carriers were deployed to the region was when the United States bombed Iran last year.

The Gerald R. Ford, the newest and largest carrier in the US fleet, has been operating in the Caribbean with its escort ships and earlier took part in operations near Venezuela.

Exiled Prince Reza Pahlavi attended the Munich Security Conference after officials of the Islamic Republic were not invited to the annual gathering.

Pahlavi told Iran International he would meet several US senators on the sidelines of the conference and hold a press conference on February 14. He described the February 14 call as highly significant.

Iran will respond strongly to any move against it, the secretary of Iran’s Defense Council told Al Jazeera, saying the country’s missile systems are a red line and not open to negotiation.

“Our missile systems are part of our red lines and are not negotiable,” Ali Shamkhani said, adding that Israel cannot act without direct backing from Washington.

“We will respond to any adventurism against Iran in a strong, decisive and appropriate manner.”

Iran’s military readiness, he said is high and added that the cost of any miscalculation would be significant.