Warning: This article contains graphic descriptions of death and injury
Heading home after joining a protest in Tehran on 8 January, Reza put his arms around his wife Maryam to protect her. “Suddenly, I felt my arm go light – there was only her jacket in my hands,” he told a family member, who later spoke to BBC Persian. Maryam had been fatally shot – and they had no idea where the bullet had come from.
Reza carried Maryam’s body for an hour and a half. Exhausted, he sat down in an alley. After a short time, the door of a nearby house opened. The people who lived there took them into their garage, brought a white sheet and wrapped Maryam’s body in it.
Days before Maryam headed out to the protests, she had told her children – aged seven and 14 – about what was happening in their country. “Sometimes parents go to the protests and don’t come back,” she said. “My blood, and yours, is no more precious than anyone else’s.”
Reza and Maryam’s names have been changed for safety reasons.