Adnan Hosseini

Adnan was a 25 year old father of a one-year-old boy when he was injured. 

“I had a family, a job, and I was living my life peacefully.”

Adnan had lived his whole life with his family in the Kurdistan Province in Iran. He and his family were of modest means, he describes their situation as being in the lower socioeconomic class. Adnan worked hard in school, and although he may have liked to pursue further education and go to university, his family’s economic situation didn’t allow for it. So he started to work. 

Soon, he met the love of his life, got married and had a child.

The life that he lived was bearable, but the injustices and oppression imposed by the regime in Iran was hard to ignore. As a young man with a young family to support, Adnan felt the pressures of the collapsing economy. He wanted to build a good life for his wife and son, but it felt almost impossible under the mismanagement of this regime. Adnan and his family had always been critical of the government in Iran, they had always opposed them, but they hadn’t yet outwardly protested. The last straw for them, as for many others, was the death-in-custody of Mahsa “Jhina” Amini, who like Adnan, was Kurdish-Iranian.

“When they killed Jhina, that’s when we felt we had to raise our voices and protest – not just for Iran, but for the whole world to hear us.”

Adnan recalled that protests erupted in his city as soon as the news broke out. People were outraged. It started in Saqqez, the home town of Mahsa “Jhina” Amini, and spread quickly throughout the Kurdistan Province, and to the whole of Iran. 

From Kurdistan to Balouchestan, people all over Iran had decided they had had enough. 

In the early days, Adnan remembers watching what was happening, wanting to see how far things would go. He watched the people around him, the groups forming and those who were just like him, with just as much to lose, going into the streets and fighting for their right to live.

Adnan didn’t make the decision to go out easily. He had a toddler at home that depended on him. He couldn’t leave his wife alone. He had seen what had happened just a few years ago in November of 2019, when 1,500 people had been killed for protesting in just three days. This fueled his urge to not simply sit at home.

“We made the decision that we couldn’t just sit by and stay silent. We couldn’t just watch and be passive observers.”

Adnan refers to the “gray” people of Iran, who oppose the government but never act on their opposition. Adnan had made a decision that that couldn’t be him. That he wanted to see change and that he would fight for that change.

Adnan tells us that he believes that’s how the people chose the slogan “woman, life, freedom” to represent the movement. It was because people were forced to ask themselves, why should living in Iran be a crime? Why should someone be killed simply for existing? 

“We demanded women’s rights, but this movement was never just about women’s rights. There are thousands of other reasons, thousands of other slogans we could have used but the heart of all of them, the most important demand for us, was the right to be free. To live freely. To have a dignified life in our own society.”

Adnan recalls the intensity of the crackdown against protesters across Iran, particularly in Kurdistan and Balouchestan. Like many others, he had been protesting peacefully, unarmed, when he was shot by the riot police who were aiming kinetic impact projectiles, directly at people’s torsos and faces. 

When he was shot, Adnan immediately lost the vision in his eye, and the shock made it difficult for him to see from the other. He was at the mercy of those around him who saved his life and got him to a hospital.

Knowing that the hospitals were being surveilled, those helping Adnan took him to a less used entrance where some friends were able to help him inside, but he couldn’t stay at this hospital for long as they were not equipped to treat his eye injury. Like many, many others, he was referred to Farabi hospital in Tehran. 

He was loaded into a car and they started the journey immediately. 

“I love these wounds I carry because they were part of reaching a goal, an ideal that the whole world now recognises. I love the fact that we came together, and despite our differences, we paid the price for it. In my opinion, freedom is something you have to fight for and pay a price for.”

Although the staff at Farabi did what they could to protect their patients, plainclothes officers had seemed to have infiltrated the hospital on the day that Adnan had been admitted and he witnessed someone be dragged away without permission from the medical staff and taken into custody. This created a sense of insecurity for everyone involved. 

Adnan stayed for the initial treatment at Farabi but didn’t feel safe and decided he would be better off closer to home, so he headed back to Kurdistan before the full course of his treatment had ended.

We spoke with Adnan about fear, and how he’d experienced it on the night that he was injured. 

“Of course there is some fear. When you’re standing unarmed, the person in front of you with a weapon in hand and orders to kill. Fear is natural.” 

But being surrounded by his friends, townspeople and fellow Iranians, gave Adnan the strength to overcome that fear and stand taller. He looked around and saw that he was not alone. He had taken a first step to fighting for his basic human rights, and with those around him, he knew that he had picked the correct path. This helped the fear he felt to dissipate.

Adnan had weighed his options before going to the streets and he had made the decision that he was ready to leave the fear behind, and stand shoulder to shoulder with his people to shout and fight for freedom.

For his fight, Adnan has now had six operations on his eye to no avail. The main goal for him has been to at the very least keep the eye, even if it will never see again. 

“I have scars all over my face, especially on the right side. There are also scars on my body, neck – basically from my chest up. The scar tissue has consumed the pellets remaining in my body and they’ve become a part of me now.”

Adnan finds strength to carry on when he sees his fellow countrymen being persecuted, tortured, suffering daily in their continuous fight for freedom, and this makes his wound feel smaller, at least compared to what others are facing every single day at the hands of the regime.

“Being human means that you don’t submit to oppression. You stand tall and take control of your history, and that you protest against the injustice that happens to you and to your people.”

Adnan’s family were as supportive as they could be. On arriving at Farabi Hospital, Adnan was informed that his young teenage brother had also been severely injured and had been taken in for treatment at hospital. His family had gone into absolute chaos, with Adnan all the way in Tehran for treatment, and his little brother in hospital in Sanandaj miles away. Between them, many checkpoints, streets being searched neighbourhood by neighbourhood and security forces looking for the smallest reason to grab anyone they could. On top of that, the severe restriction of internet and cellular services. For some time, Adnan was unable to get news about the condition of his brother and had feared the worst.

Luckily, Adnan’s brother has since made a full recovery. 

“I can’t even describe what my family went through. It was pure chaos. The level of stress and uncertainty that we experienced… I don’t think words can fully capture it. It was one of the worst moments of our lives.”

While a Farabi, Adnan had witnessed how people were not allowed to describe exactly what it was that was happening to them, he was seeing how records were being altered. Although the hospital staff were doing this to protect their staff and patients, so that they could continue to provide treatment, this played a key role in the regime’s cover-up of the systematic nature of the crime against humanity that they were committing. 

Adnan tried to find routes for filing a complaint without facing retaliation, but it seemed this would be impossible. When he attempted to file a lawsuit, he was met with a response from the judiciary that said:

“Your injury is considered a national security matter. If you attempt to pursue legal action, your case will be dismissed under anti-terrorism laws. You have no right to publicize this issue on social media or through any media outlet.”

It was clear to Adnan that what was most important to the regime was that the systematic nature of the eye injuries being suffered by protesters across Iran not be publicized. 

The regime was working hard to silence those who had been injured.

After this, Adnan started to experience threatening phone calls and harassment from the regime’s forces.

“My wife was warned that they could stage a car accident at any moment and get rid of us. We were told, next time there would be no warnings, that the next bullet would be directly in the head.”

These threats made it feel as though they were not only trying to silence Adnan, rather completely eliminate him. 

Adnan realised from patterns of people’s experiences that due to the increased media attention, the regime was not formally arresting people, rather informally harassing them in a way that was difficult for the victims to produce evidence of the extent of the harassment. 

After leaving Farabi, Adnan felt safer seeking medical treatment in private, quieter facilities, but unfortunately, in going to one of these treatment facilities, one time he was picked up by undercover police and taken to an undisclosed location.

“This wasn’t a normal prison. It wasn’t even an official detention centre – it was one of the intelligence agencies’ secret facilities.”

For eleven days, Adnan was held in this undisclosed facility without charge. 

Adnan recalls the interrogators would tell him that he was lucky he had just suffered an eye injury, and that they should have finished the job. 

This is just a small window into the torture that Adnan endured in those 11 days. He was continuously asked about his involvement in the protests, belittled and ridiculed. In the meanwhile, they were only giving them basic food once a day at random times of the day to eat, and they were not allowing them to sleep.

“There was a constant, loud sound — like a machine humming, or music playing on loop. The loud sound would suddenly change so that if you’d dozed off, you’d be jerked awake. They wanted to bring us to complete mental exhaustion so that we would agree to whatever it was they were accusing us of.”

This sleep deprivation was particularly painful for Adnan given his eye injury, but the sounds that he heard made it even more difficult. He could hear how others were being tortured and tormented, and he felt that what he had experienced was perhaps not as severe as what those around him had been enduring. 

“Even if I couldn’t see them, I could hear their screams, their cries.”

After 11 days, Adnan was dropped off at midnight in a strange place far from his home, severely injured and in a poor state.

This experience made Adnan even more angry and more determined that he would need justice for what had been done to him and others. 

“What I went through was brutal, but the Islamic Republic’s system has done worse to many others. That’s why I say — I am one of the lucky ones.”

This being said, Adnan realised that he would not be able to stay in Iran. He understood that if he wanted justice he would need to leave his country as if he stayed, the retaliation surely would continue to escalate and he did not want to put his family in more danger. And so they packed and they went to Türkiye, and eventually, to a safer third country.

In Türkiye, conditions were not much better, especially given that Adnan and his family were Kurdish, and that was their first language. The treatment of Kurds in Türkiye is filled with discrimination and prejudice. Kurds are at higher risk of experiencing hate crimes in Türkiye. 

These issues caused more delays to Adnan’s ability to seek proper treatment for his eye as he and his family fought to survive.

“People in Iran weren’t asking for much. They just wanted a normal life. A simple life. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable demand. It’s a basic human right.”

When he’d gone to protest on that night, Adnan had hoped for the voices of the people to be heard. He knew that change wouldn’t happen overnight, but he had hoped that at the very least this would be start. Even though that night didn’t bring about the change so many are waiting for, every single steps brings us closer and closer. 

“I compare it to a farmer. A farmer works the lands for months, years even, without seeing results. But one day, after all the effort, the harvest comes.”

Adnan sees that the seeds of freedom have been sowed and it’s only a matter of time before the people get the freedom that they have been fighting for. 

Two years on, Adnan still feels pain. But he knows that if his injury had been caused by an accident, he would have had a much harder time coming to terms with it. But this hadn’t happened in an accident. He sees how the people of Iran stand beside him and others like him who were injured, he sees families who had their loved ones murdered on this road, and are still fighting for justice. This gives Adnan the strength to carry on. 

“This is the price for freedom and I’m willing to pay it.”

The faith in the fact that this regime will fall gives Adnan peace. 

Along with his faith in that he has done the right thing and his continued fight for freedom, Adnan also has his wife at his side.

Adnan’s wife has been steadfast beside him and helped him to overcome all the hurdles that they have faced since he was injured. 

“She never left my side.” 

Adnan’s dedication to his wife, and her resilience are definitely reasons for hope for the future of Iran.

“She gave me the strength to carry on. Life is nothing without women. I repeat the slogan every single day, because from the bottom of my being I truly believe in it. Woman, Life, Freedom.”

Adnan continues his advocacy and would like the world to know that Iranians are not backing down. 

“When we close our eyes to injustice, when we ignore the suffering of others, when we pretend that oppression is “normal” — that is when we truly lose. We must remember our humanity. If I can see freedom, even with one eye, that would be enough for me.”

Adnan’s final message is:

“As long as the people of Iran continue to show their resilience, as long as we continue to stand tall, I know that freedom is not far away. One day, we will all gather in a free Iran. On that day, we will remember those we lost. We will honor their sacrifices. And we will say with one voice: Woman, Life, Freedom.”

– Adnan Hosseini

Resources:

November 2019:

Reuters: Special Report: Iran’s leader ordered crackdown on unrest – ‘Do whatever it takes to end it’

Wikipedia: 2019–2020 Iranian protests

The situation of refugees in Türkiye:

Vulnerable Iranian refugees face mounting pressure in Turkey

The situation of Kurdish People in Turkiye:

Cases of discrimination and the state of hate crime response in Türkiye:

Special Report on Hate Crimes and Recent Racist Attacks in Turkey

Story taken from Eyes for Freedom with permissions.