Simultaneously with the holding of the fortieth-day ceremonies (marking the 40th day after the death of the uprising’s martyrs) for several victims of the January uprising, various cities across Iran witnessed large public gatherings. In Fars Province, in the city of Nurabad Mamasani, a large number of citizens gathered to commemorate two individuals killed during the protests, Mehdi Ahmadi and Abolfazl Heydari Mouselou.
In the city of Qir, also in Fars Province, the fortieth-day ceremony for Abolfazl Heydari Mouselou was held at his gravesite with the participation of thousands. The crowd commemorated him by chanting slogans such as “Death to the dictator,” “Abolfazl, may your soul be happy,” “This fallen flower has sacrificed himself for the homeland,” and “An Iranian dies but does not accept humiliation.” According to local reports, the atmosphere of the مراسم was marked by a large public presence and explicit protest slogans.
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At the same time, the fortieth-day ceremony for Mehdi Ahmadi was held in Nurabad Mamasani. Participants kept his memory alive by chanting slogans including “Death to the IRGC”—referring to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, a key military and security force of the Iranian regime—and “Death to Khamenei,” referring to regime supreme leader Ali Khamenei. Images and reports published on social media indicate that a significant crowd attended the ceremony, and the event turned into a protest against the Iranian regime.
In a similar development, in Golestan Province, a fortieth-day ceremony was also held for martyr Nahayat Rahimi Dashti, a young woman who, according to reports, was shot in the neck and killed on Thursday, January 8, at Kakh Square in the city of Gorgan. During the ceremony, her mother addressed the attendees with moving words, saying: “My child was not a passerby; she was a fighter! She went for her homeland!”
These ceremonies were held as the fortieth-day commemorations of the January protest victims in recent weeks have increasingly become venues for expressing public anger and renewing the protesters’ demands. The broad public participation and the repetition of political slogans at these events indicate the continuation of a tense social atmosphere in several cities.
The simultaneous holding of these ceremonies in several cities—from Qir to Nurabad Mamasani and Gorgan—once again demonstrated that the fortieth-day mourning rituals for those killed are not merely memorial services but have become platforms for expressing protest and social solidarity.
