In the wake of the Woman, Life, Freedom uprising, Iran’s medical community and healthcare workers, like other sectors of society, were not spared from the state’s organized violence.
Doctors, residents, and medical students—whose professional mission is to save lives and safeguard public health—became direct targets of state brutality. During the 2022 uprising, several physicians lost their lives as a result of such violence, including:
• Aida Rostami, a general practitioner from Tehran, who was abducted for treating injured protesters. Her tortured body was later found abandoned in Yaftabad.
• Ailar Haqi, a medical student in Tabriz, who was killed by direct fire from security forces.
• Parisa Bahmani, a general surgeon from Zanjan, who was killed during a protest gathering of physicians in Tehran.
• In Mahabad, Dr. Masoud Ahmadzadeh, a dentist, and Dr. Azad Hosseinpour, a protesting physician, were both fatally shot by security forces within a short span of time.
• Ebrahim Rigi, a medical student from Zahedan, was also killed during the city’s protests.
Beyond the medical community, many ordinary citizens who voluntarily sought to aid the injured or deliver medicine were arrested and handed heavy sentences. Among them is Rezgar Bigzadeh Babamiri, who was detained and sentenced to death merely for delivering medicine to the wounded. The Islamic Republic has even criminalized the act of helping the injured—an act that is a fundamental human duty.
On this National Physicians’ Day, Hana Human Rights Organization honors the profound humanitarian values upheld by the physicians who lost their lives, as well as all those who remain imprisoned today solely for their acts of compassion.