Aida Ghajar

IranWire

On November 15, 2022, during the "Woman, Life, Freedom" movement, the entire contents of a shotgun shell were emptied into the thigh of Mehrdad Sabouri, a member of the Construction Workers' Guild of Kamyaran and a former member of the Committee to Coordinate Aid in Establishing Labor Organizations in Kurdistan Province.

I met Mehrdad Sabouri in Germany. He spoke with great difficulty about his suffering and resistance—a man who was imprisoned and tortured multiple times, and whose leg was torn open by a shotgun blast during the Jina (Mahsa) uprising. His life is a narrative of hardship, loss, resistance, and a continuous struggle against the Islamic Republic.

Mehrdad was born into a Jewish family in the city of Kamyaran and endured "double oppression" as a religious minority.

In 2004, one of his brothers, Farhad, was accused of cooperating with the Kurdish Komala Party and was subjected to such severe torture that he permanently lost his mental health.In 2007, Mehrdad lost two of his other brothers, Behrouz and Javad, who were working as Kolbars (cross-border fuel porters) in what he describes as a "staged" accident.

Following their deaths, he became the head and sole provider of the family. However, the judicial system’s accusations against him persisted, alongside his activism in labor unions and environmental causes, until his fate ultimately led him into exile >>>