Saman, a 31-year-old export consultant, fled from a Tehran hospital when Iranian security officers came to arrest him in October. His left eye was seriously wounded when he was shot at point-blank range with a rubber bullet during protests that erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini. Saman now lives in Germany, where he is still being treated for his injuries.
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The officer recognised my face in Tehran’s Valiasr Square. I had noticed him over the past three days of demonstrations. On October 1, our eyes met and everything went black. He had shot me [with a rubber bullet] from three metres away. The man who shot me in the eye knew who I was.
A few days after they killed Mahsa Amini, I saw demonstrators on Instagram going after the law enforcement officers that were mistreating them. They were resisting. That same evening I joined them in the square in Tehran. My friends and I gathered in groups of seven or eight, sometimes on motorbikes, to demonstrate together. But I was alone on October 1 when I was shot in the face.
I spent two days in Farabi Hospital in Tehran. Part of my eye had exploded when I was hit and I had to undergo an emergency operation. I was still confined to bed when a nurse warned me the next day that two officers were talking about me in the lobby. They had come to arrest me.
I hid in one of the consultation rooms, close to a corridor, and as soon as I could I left through the courtyard. A hospital security guard saw me, but he turned around. I don’t know if he was too old to run after me or if he let me get away, in which case I thank him for it.
‘Others have gone to the scaffold for less’
I stayed hidden for 12 days, then I flew out of Iran to Turkey with my eye still bandaged. I was so scared that I was going to be stopped at the airport, because I couldn’t pass unnoticed with the bandage. I was…
