Adrian Villegas

The American and Iranian flag stand side by side during a vigil honoring lives lost in Iran, symbolizing unity, remembrance, and solidarity.

Read the Spanish version of this story here.

Solemn music swelled while candles, arranged to spell “IRAN,” flickered in front of Corbett Center Student Union, Friday, Jan. 30. Iranian students gathered with their friends and family to remember over 36,000 people the Iranian security forces killed in a crackdown on nationwide protests, Jan. 8-9. 

On Jan. 8, the Iranian government shut down internet access for most of the country. The outage lasted two weeks, leaving the Iranian people without a way to share what was happening. Yasmin Pakdel , an Iranian student at New Mexico State University, said she didn’t know if family and friends were alive or not, until internet access was restored. 

“Some of my friends never texted me back again,” Pakdel said. “Some of them were shot. One of my friends, a young, beautiful woman with a three-year-old child was shot in the eye, and she lost one of her eyes. A lot of my friends are arrested and their families are. They don’t know if they are going to be executed or not, because the sentence for them is the death sentence. 

So, I feel devastated. I feel like my world is falling apart. Because before I thought, at least in this world, there is humanity, there is justice. I know that it wasn’t 100% perfect, but I thought these words had a meaning. But right now, I don’t know, I feel like we, all of us, Iranians, we are devastated, we are angry. And personally, I feel like I’m paralyzed. I cannot study; I cannot do anything. When I close my eyes, I see the body bags. I see the people who are dead.” 

As a way to show that the victims are not simply numbers but people with families and histories, event organizers handed out roses with photos and names of victims. The vigil also included displays of X posts from human rights activist Soran Mansournia.  

The victims displayed ranged from three-year-old Melina Asadi to 66-year-old mother and grandmother, Jamile Shafei. One post by Mansournia included a photo of a boy with a pet parakeet.  

“During the peaceful protests in Tajrish, Tehran, suppressive forces of the Islamic regime killed #BenyaminMohammadi. He was a 15-year-old child. Benyamin was shot in front of his home in the Golchin neighborhood,” Mansournia posted. 

Another post shared news of a physiotherapist whose family had to pay a fee to recover his body.

“During the January 2026 protests in Tehran, Iran, Masoud Bolourchi, a 37-year-old physiotherapist and founder of Rush Clinic, was killed by security forces,” Mansournia posted. “He was shot in the back of the head. His family later identified his body at the Kahrizak Forensic Center. After facing threats, pressure, and forced payments (including an alleged “bullet fee”), they were able to recover his body and bury him quietly.” 

The vice president of the Iranian Student Organization, who goes by Delli, expressed her frustration that more people don’t know what is happening in Iran. She stressed the event wasn’t meant to be political, but simply a time to gather and grieve. 

“I would say politics are not the problem for Iranians right now, of course it is, but at this moment, we wanted a time for gathering together,” Delli said. “We just wanted to talk about the people that were killed. It’s not politics, it’s not economics.” 

Gary Badke, whose wife and friends are Iranian, said it was important to speak up for the Iranian people because they can’t speak up for themselves. 

“It’s just a peaceful gathering, you know. But if this was happening in Iran, we might get gunned down [in the] same situation,” Badke said. 

As more news is released about the victims in Iran, the Iranian students at NMSU continue to grieve together and lean on support from friends.