Photo: BBC Persian
Saeed Safari
سعید صفری
2026
- Taken
- 15 January 2026 (Sources differ)
- Age
- 49 years old
- From
- Ilam, Ilam
Kept on this phone only. Nothing is sent.
Their life
Saeed was a Kurd from Ilam and one of the province's football veterans. As a young man he was a gifted player for Perspolis Ilam, and later he coached the youth game, training the city's boys. People who knew him remember a lively, active man.
He was married and the father of two sons and a daughter.
How the regime took them
On 8 January 2026, at Resalat Junction in Ilam, Saeed saw security forces attacking a friend of his with knives and leave him on the ground. Thinking his friend was dead, he went to pull the body away before the forces could take it. They shot him in the head and chest with pellets at close range and then beat him hard with batons.
He was taken to hospital in a coma and died a week later; his friend survived. He was buried in Ilam the next day. His family were pressed again and again to accept the regime's story that protesters had killed him, and refused. (Hengaw and Iran Human Rights date his death to 15 January, the Boroumand Center to 14 January, HRANA to 9 January.)
