Iran International
An Iranian protester shot during the 2022 Woman, Life, Freedom uprising is living in constant pain with more than 80 lead pellets lodged in his body — and now fears deportation from Turkey to Iran, where he could face severe punishment.
Speaking to Iran International, 22-year-old Arya Ostad Ebrahimi described how he was gravely wounded by security forces during protests in the Kurdish city of Mahabad in November 2022 and forced to flee the country after repeated threats against him and his family.
“I was injured by the oppressive forces of the Islamic Republic,” he said. “That day, I helped a woman and her little son escape when they attacked the crowd. I saved their lives — but I was shot at close range and severely injured.”
Ebrahimi said both of his legs were struck by shotgun pellets.
“They took me to a village instead of a hospital because Mahabad was under military rule,” he told Iran International. “They removed some of the bullets, but around 80 are still inside my body.”
Doctors, he said, later confirmed that many of the pellets were lodged near his knees and arteries, making surgery impossible.
“The pain never stops,” Ebrahimi said. “When I sleep, if I roll onto my side or put my hand under my head, I wake up from the pain. It’s like someone is pressing a syringe into my wrist.”
From protest to exile
Before the uprising, Ebrahimi was a boxer and runner preparing to study law. His life changed the day he attended the funeral of slain protester Zanyar Abubakri — one of the bloodiest days of the Mahabad demonstrations.
“The people of Mahabad were brutally beaten and shot,” he recalled. “I couldn’t stand by and do nothing.”
After being shot, he hid in safe houses to avoid arrest.
Security forces raided his family home several times, threatening to kidnap his nine-year-old sister if he failed to surrender. “They came in the middle of the night with guns,” he said. “My little sister still hasn’t recovered from the fear of those nights.”
Eventually, he fled Iran and sought refuge in Turkey. But even there, he said, he has not found safety. His asylum status has been revoked, and he must regularly report to authorities — a process he fears could lead to his arrest and deportation.
“The Turkish government took away my residence and asylum status,” he explained. “Now, through a lawyer, I’m just buying time. I have to go every few weeks to sign at the immigration office, and I’m terrified each time. I’ve seen how others like me — political refugees — have been arrested while signing and sent back to Iran.”
He said that fear has made daily life unbearable. “I can’t sleep. I’m afraid they’ll come to my house one day and take me away. If they send me back, it will be a death sentence. I know what will happen to me in Iran.”
A growing crisis for Iranian refugees
Ebrahimi’s ordeal is part of a wider crisis facing Iranian asylum seekers in Turkey. Iran International has previously reported on how political dissidents and protesters who fled Iran are being detained, mistreated, and in some cases prepared for deportation.
In January, Iran International profiled 35-year-old Iranian refugee Sina Rostami, held in a Turkish deportation camp.
Also a former protester in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement, Rostami said he was routinely awakened by guards striking him with batons and forced to live in overcrowded, filthy quarters.
“The way they treat us here is like we’re not humans,” Rostami said at the time.
In February, Iran International reported on Iranian refugee and LGBTQ+ activist Nahid Modarresi, who lost her protected-person status after the United Nations handed asylum responsibilities to Ankara.
“I hide myself because I am too afraid to go outside,” she said.
Legal advocates estimate that thousands of Iranians once under UN protection have had their status revoked, leaving them at risk of detention and deportation.
Together, these cases reveal a growing pattern of pressure on Iranian refugees in Turkey. Human rights groups warn that political exiles are being left without protection and face possible repatriation to Iran, where they risk torture, imprisonment, or execution
Despite his injuries and uncertainty, Arya Ostad Ebrahimi remains determined to keep speaking out.
“I didn’t commit any crime,” he said softly. “I just wanted freedom.”
In an interview with KhabarOnline, Professor Ebrahim Azadegan of Sharif University of Technology said, “These days, we lose one university professor every week.”
Abri-Nia added that between the 2018-19 and 2022-23 academic years, about a quarter of the 6,000 faculty members in key engineering departments at top Iranian universities emigrated.
“I see migration as a wound on the body of our universities, one that keeps deepening,” he said.
The departures highlight a growing brain drain from Iran’s higher education system, long strained by political pressures, economic hardship, and limited academic freedom.
Vetting procedures
The two academics attributed the resignations and departures not only to economic pressures but also to security vetting procedures they said disqualified faculty for reasons such as having signed petitions, being unmarried, or having had a café photo in the US.
Azadegan gave the example of a faculty candidate with a doctorate from Princeton who was rejected from Sharif because “he had a photo with a few girls and boys in a café in America.”
In engineering mechanics at the University of Tehran, Abri-Nia said, “about ten professors either retired early to continue work abroad or went on sabbatical and never returned.”
He added that while many younger scholars accepted research visits abroad, they did not come back, effectively ending their ties to Iranian academia.
Emigrations up after 2022 protests
The boost in faculty emigration follows the Woman, Life, Freedom protests of late 2022, which both academics said coincided with a decline in intellectual freedom on campuses.
According to Azadegan: “We were faced with a disaster at Sharif University in the last three years: nearly 70 professors left and we still haven’t found adequate replacements.”
Azadegan described the events of 2022 as “dark days” for Sharif University, recalling that security forces attacked the campus during nationwide protests, beating many students and faculty “without cause” and imposing a heavy security presence.
In October 2022, security and plainclothes forces surrounded Sharif University, arrested between 30 and 40 students, and opened fire on those attempting to leave the campus.
He said that even now, women stationed at the university gates warn students about dress code violations, surveillance cameras cover much of the campus, and students are still summoned before disciplinary committees over compulsory hijab rules.
Israel’s Foreign Ministry has warned staff about the incident, urging increased caution.
“Recently, there have been reports of [diplomats] being added to WhatsApp groups, not through their contacts. These are groups that are opened and run by our adversaries from phone numbers from Iran, Pakistan, and more,” the advisory said, according to Times of Israel.
“Therefore, it is necessary to be vigilant about the groups you join and are added to, and even change the settings so that you can only be added to the groups by contacts who are registered with you,” it added.
Iran International sought comment from Israel’s Foreign Ministry, which did not respond.
Israeli intelligence analyst Ronen Solomon told Iran International the reports were plausible, adding that a dedicated Revolutionary Guards unit known as Department 50 is responsible for such cyber operations.
“If I’m Iranian, I can build a group where the name is similar to one that they’re already using, so it could be an easy way to collect information. If you have the number of the target you can put it in your list in the phone, and if their privacy definition is ‘all’ and not ‘only contacts’ you can easily do it, but even if you do it, you don’t control their Whatsapp," he said.
According to Solomon, “The Iranians have shown that they can collect lists of diplomats because sometimes it’s listed online, in the public domain of embassies, and they can put you in a special group that’s opened with a cover story. When they’re sharing a post in their group, you’ll also see it in your WhatsApp so you can click on a link and be targeted in a cyber attack."
After the June war between the two archenemies, Iran International reported the uptick in cyber attacks between the two sides.
”Although the Iran-Israel ceasefire has paused direct military engagement, cyber operations have intensified," Marwan Hachem, co-founder of FearsOff cybersecurity experts, told Iran International.
“Since the truce began, nearly 450 cyberattacks have been recorded against Israeli targets—many attributed to pro-Iran hacker groups,” he said at the start of July.
