On the night of January 10, Shahram Maghsoudi sent a final message to a relative.
“I am going ahead. Tonight is the night,” he wrote to a relative. “Take care of the family if I am not there.” He ended with two emojis: a red heart and a kiss.
Maghsoudi, an Iranian powerlifting champion born in Izeh, a predominantly Arab and Bakhtiari city in Iran’s south-west, lived in Baharestan, a satellite city outside Isfahan, one of Iran’s most historically significant regions. Like Iran, his life bridged ethnicities and regions.
That night, he joined millions of Iranians who poured into the streets across all of Iran’s 31 provinces after a call to action by Reza Pahlavi, the exiled son of Iran’s last monarch. The chants “Javid Shah” (Long live the King) and “This is the final battle, Pahlavi will return” echoed through city squares and residential neighbourh
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