Photo: BBC Persian
Sanam Pourbabaei
صنم پوربابایی
2026
- Taken
- 8 January 2026
- Age
- 26 years old
- From
- Lahijan, Gilan
Kept on this phone only. Nothing is sent.
Their life
Sanam was a violinist and music teacher from Lahijan, with a bachelor's degree in music. She started learning classical violin in 2011, and from 2017 she taught violin at music schools in Lahijan and Rasht.
She played with the Gilan Philharmonic Orchestra and the Caspian String Orchestra, performed in a string orchestra alongside the Sokout choir, and was part of the music of the 27th Children and Youth Theatre Festival.
A person close to her calls her a very talented artist whose career was growing fast, and remembers her as calm, polite, trustworthy and purposeful, someone who kept out of drama.
How the regime took them
On 8 January 2026, at the protest near Bagh-e Melli park in Lahijan, Sanam was shot in the head. The person close to her says the shot was fired from above, aimed at her head.
Her body was not handed over. Her family had to go back again and again, and only after about ten days, and a payment, was it released to them, on condition that she be buried at night.
