Witness’s name & surname: Withheld
Relation to the wounded and the deceased: Withheld
Name and surname of the wounded: Withheld, S in this testimony.
Date of birth of the wounded: 1969
Place in which he/she was wounded: Withheld
Date when he was wounded: 17/11/2019
S has 2 children and is the breadwinner of the family. We were invited for lunch at the house of S in the noon of 26 Aban 1398 (17 November 2019). It was chaotic everywhere due to people’s protests. Their children, out of curiosity, said to the decided to go out to see what was happening. Since it was closed everywhere and there was no vehicle available for them to take, they never thought that they would go out of the village. A couple of hours passed. Their parents phoned them to see where they were. They replied, that all roads were blocked and that they could not come back. They said that they would go to their uncle’s house . S and his brother were anxious and wanted to go out and bring the kids back as it was dangerous for them. They left the house at about 6:30 p.m. They were told that the roads were blocked. They took a by-road village S said that when he came close to the town, he saw that a huge fire was burning and it was chaotic. They got out of the vehicle to see what was going on.
He said that a military officer was also standing there and he took permission from him to pass. He told him to pass quickly. Mostly the plainclothes men were on the street. He said that he did not see anything in their hands. It was too chaotic He held the hand of his brother and was passing when the police and the Basij launched their attack on the people. Everyone pushed everyone else to run away. His brother’s hand slipped from his hand and they lost each other. While he was frantically searching for his brother, they opened bursts of fire on everyone and he felt his elbow was burning. A bullet had hit it.
S said that he did not realize from which direction the bullet came and struck him. He did not feel at all the bullet that was in his stomach. He only said that he felt his elbow was burning. He said that when the bullet hit him, he was conscious. When he fell on the ground with the back of his head, they lifted him and took him to the hospital; up to that time he had retained his consciousness. After that he lost his consciousness of what had happened. He said six seven persons carried him in their arms and took him to one or two clinics which did not admit him and said that the bullet had remained lodged in the abdomen and he must be transferred to a hospital. He was struck by two bullets. S was shot at close to the Basij base. Probably it was fired by the Basijis. The Basij forces were standing on the one side, and the people on the other side.
S’s spouse called his cell phone at 8:30 to see where he was. No matter how many times she called him, he wouldn’t answer. She waited for a quarter of an hour and dialled him again. His cell phone was in someone else’s hands. She asked where the owner of the cell phone was. It was one of the hospital guards. He told me to come to the hospital. S’s spouse went to hospital. She gave his description and said that his clothes were such and such colour. They said: ‘Ma’am, the person you describe was in a critical condition. Perhaps he is already dead. But you go to OR and ask.’ She went there and asked. They said that he was taken to the operating room. She waited until 12:30. His surgeon came out and said: ‘We did all we could but regretfully he may not survive as the bullet in his abdomen has minced the entire large intestine and the kidney.’ He said that 4-5 litres of blood were drained from his abdomen and the bullet was removed from it.
The doctor did not tell much but one of the nurses said that the bullet was an assault bullet. S’s spouse said this a couple of times to the doctor and he replied: ‘Thank God that it’s all over.’ They gave her only a description of the hospital surgery. One bullet had hit the elbow of his hand and had exited; another had hit him in the abdomen from the side of the abdomen and his right kidney was removed. His large intestine was totally minced; forty centimetres of his large intestine, a part of his liver and stomach were removed. The way it was written in the file, he had fallen on the ground on the back of his head, or he had fallen in the hospital while he was being transferred from one place to another and the nerves of his right hand had been destroyed and it had become paralysed. They said that it must be grafted. He declined it as the surgery in his right hand did him no good, he said. After several months a physiotherapist who told him to get a electromyography test. They did the electromyography test. They said that because he was bed-ridden for a long time, his hand had developed a problem, or had received a trauma or something like that.
A family member said that he did not see any security forces in the hospital but he heard that they had come and hauled away a number of persons. Everyone who was confined to bed, or was in a critical condition, or was shot in the eye, said that they were on the move and wanted to go to their workplace. One person said that he was shot while he was installing a short-circuit camera. All of them were young men, between the ages of 25 – 27-years-old. Most of them were shot in the hand and the abdomen. There was one whose bullet had exited from his spinal cord.
S was in coma for a couple of weeks. After two weeks they brought him in the special care ward where he was bed-ridden for three months. In the early days the police interviewed him in the hospital. They had a camera in their hands. They filmed and asked where he was, who brought him to the hospital, where he was shot at, was there any one known to him, and what his occupation was.
Another surgery was performed after about 2 month , they grafted his hand two weeks after he was shot. the police came to his house. His child was at home. They seized one of his clothes that they had brought from the hospital. They said that S had a drone, but it was a toy of his child. They took photographs of toys and questioned his child where his child was, and how it was; then they bothered them no more.
They brought S home after three months. Colostomy was attached to him for six months. He was home two days and five days in the hospital. Since there was an abscess in his stomach, they wanted to remove it. They said that he must remain in the hospital for six months. Since the colostomy was attached to his intestine, they said that it must be repaired. Then they opened his abdomen and removed some part of the intestine. They said that the abscess in his abdomen had damaged his intestine. They were involved with the hospital all the time. After six months they performed another surgery.
In 2021 S’s spouse went after his complaint and his file. They told her to go to the Security Police and lodge his complaint with them. S’s spouse went there and lodged his complaint. Whatever S’s spouse said they wrote it down but gave nothing to her. They said that they had no knowledge of the case and what had happened to him. They sent her to the Forensic Medicine Department. They did not give even their answer. They said that they would send it through the system. They had written in the Forensic Medicine report that he had developed 87% disability. S’s family members visited them perhaps thirty times but they didn’t tell them anything up to this day. The last time they went to the court, they said that he was innocent. They had written in the letter ‘non-prosecution’ as he was considered innocent.
Now both of S’s hands are disabled. The cell phone suddenly drops from his hand. It is slightly better than when the doctors had given up hope. For one whole year he could not at all do his personal chores. His spouse even took him to the shower. He has no choice but to go to work. His child is a high school diploma-holder. His child is forced to go to work because of what has happened to S.
