Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad

Who was Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad?

Ezzat Ebrahim-Nejad was an Iranian student, poet and demonstrator who was shot and killed in the attack by security forces on Tehran University dormitory that preceded and provoked the July 1999 student riots in Iran.

Several other students were beaten and injured in the attack and some police were later brought to trial, but no trial has been held for Ebrahim-Nejad's killer, who according to witnesses was a lebas-shakhsis, or plainsclothesman, a "shorthand" term for "paramilitary forces in civilian clothes." According to Iranian human rights activist Shirin Ebadi, it was Ebrahim-Nejad who was the owner of the blood-stained shirt held aloft by Ahmad Batebi in a celebrated photo which appeared on the cover of The Economist magazine in 1999.