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He spearheaded protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. He is no stranger to the vice squad. For more than ten years, he says, he has been resisting the authoritarian regime in Iran: Saman.

“I am fighting the regime because it has deprived the people of my country of the smallest natural rights,” Saman told Watson.

On social media, he not only provokes the regime with his thirst for freedom, but also for alcohol. A dangerous undertaking. Because: Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the use of alcohol has been prohibited by law – and is severely punished. According to the Sharia practiced in Iran, there is a risk of whipping and, if repeated, even the death penalty.

A report from 2020 shows that the government is serious. Amnesty International reported on the case of a man who was convicted of alcohol consumption several times and was eventually executed.

Saman is aware of this danger. He is admired for his courage and resistance. The activist shared the following on Instagram under a photo: “In Iran, people bleed each other out of money. Painters paint my Iran in the grave.” The comments read: “You are a brave man. May God protect you.”

Since then a lot has changed.

For months now, Iran has witnessed the most violent protests since 2009. For months, women and men across the country have been fighting for a revolution.

Saman also participated in the protest movement. Night after night, he threw back tear gas grenades fired by the security forces. The move was a thorn in the side of the security forces.

Rubber shot right in the eye

While riding a motorcycle to a protest in Madin Vari Asr, Tehran, in the second week of protests following Mahsa Amini’s death, a member of the security forces shot him at close range with a rubber bullet directly in his left eye. Saman believes that it was not by accident that the police attacked him. “The policeman recognized me,” Saman told Watson.

Trigger alert: injured eye

With a badly injured eye, he drove to the nearest hospital, where they initially refused to treat him. Due to Saman’s critical condition, he was taken to another hospital, where he eventually underwent surgery.

“Using rubber bullets at close range injured my eye so badly it was damaged beyond repair. But not only that: the injection had an effect on the blood vessels in the brain. I narrowly escaped brain death,” says Saman.

But his left eye was beyond saving. The close range shot blinded him in one eye.

Saman could not recover in the hospital. The fear of another attack was too great – he was eventually treated in a government-run hospital.

He fled Iran with his family and now lives in exile.

And he keeps fighting. On social media, in TV shows and in interviews, he tells his story, which he says is shared by hundreds of Iranians. Several reports confirm that Iranian security forces are cracking down on demonstrators.

Iran is abolishing the moral police – that was the news around the world last weekend. Some Western media hailed the news as a success for the protest movement. Critics of the regime see no breakthrough in the announcement.

On the contrary. “This is an insidious propaganda battle with the aim of obscuring truth and lies,” political scientist Ario Mirzaie told MDR.

Saman also does not attach any importance to the statement: “Whether the vice police is abolished or not does not change the fact that the Islamic Republic has been killing, torturing and raping people for years.” The demonstrators have a completely different mission anyway: