Izeh Market Killings · Bazar-e Izeh

Culture of origin: Bakhtiari · Historical

Holiday sources: Bakhtiari · Iran · Lur

On 16 November 2022, during protests marking Bloody Aban, security forces opened fire on the market of Izeh, a Bakhtiari town in Khuzestan. Seven people died, many of them Bakhtiari: nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak, shot in his father's car, and the teenagers Sepehr Maghsoudi and Artin Rahmani among them. Kian's family said security forces fired; state media blamed ISIS, a claim BBC Monitoring found fake. The regime executed Mojahed Kourkour for them in 2025; his relatives say he was tortured into confessing. On 11 June 2023, Kian's birthday, Pouya Molaeirad, a relative of Kian's mother, was shot dead by security agents at a memorial at Kian's grave in Parchestan, eyewitness accounts and videos show; officials called him an attacker shot in self-defence, which his family disputes.