Mohsen Mousavi

Mohsen Mousavi (March 13, 1990 – October 8, 2022)

Mohsen Mousavi was a 31-year-old Azerbaijani (Turk) man, born on March 13, 1990. Like many young people of his generation, his life was defined by hard work, perseverance, and hope for the future. He owned a shop in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, where he spent his days earning an honest living among the crowded alleys and bustling marketplace.
The autumn of 2022 changed everything. It became the season that forever linked Mohsen’s name with one of the darkest chapters of Iran’s nationwide protests.
On Saturday, October 8, 2022, Mohsen closed his shop in the Grand Bazaar. According to published reports, he stepped outside intending to join the freedom-seeking protesters gathered in the streets. It was the last decision of his life.
Only moments after leaving his shop, security forces attacked him. Witness accounts state that officers struck him repeatedly on the head with batons. The blows were so severe that they took the life of the 30-year-old shopkeeper. Mohsen Mousavi was killed in front of the very shop where he had worked and built his livelihood.
His death was not only the loss of a young man; it marked the beginning of a painful journey for his family. In the days that followed, security authorities reportedly prevented his burial in Tehran and informed his family that his body had to be buried in a remote location.
With no choice, his family transferred Mohsen’s body to their ancestral village of Tarim, where they laid him to rest—far from the city where he had lived, worked, and lost his life.
For Mohsen’s father, the story did not end with the funeral. In a video published on his Instagram page, he declared that the family would continue seeking justice for their son. He wrote:
“We are, and will remain, seekers of justice for the innocent blood of our beloved son.”
He also lamented that the words and actions of a small number of people had deepened the family’s suffering beyond the pain of their loss, adding:
“Seeking justice is our human, religious, and legal right.”
Mohsen’s death did not occur in isolation. Just weeks earlier, on September 21, 2022, two other young Azerbaijani men—Mehdi Mousavi and Mehrdad Ghorbani—were killed by Iranian security forces during the protests in Zanjan.
Today, Mohsen Mousavi is remembered as a young shopkeeper whose ordinary life was interrupted by extraordinary violence. He left home each day to work in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, yet on a single autumn afternoon, after closing his shop, he became one of the victims of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising. He died at the age of thirty, leaving behind a grieving family whose pursuit of truth and justice continues.