Bologna, January 2, 2022 – One torchlight to remind Mehdi Zare Ashkzarithe thirty-year-old Iranian e Unibo student who died in Iran after twenty days of coma following at torture suffered in prison after being arrested during a demonstration.
In the square Scaravilli they gathered more than 50 peoplefriends, college mates and many of the Iranian community in Bologna. Everyone to light a candle for Mehdisomeone leaves flowers on his photos remembering him as “one of us”, but also as a victim “that the regime killer killed”.
Watch the video The funeral in Iran
The memory of friends
Abbas, one of his old friendrecalls their first meeting: “It was 2015, we met in Italian embassy to apply for visa permission. We have since become friends. It always was elegant, with a smile on his face and was very busy. In fact, to maintain itself since 2018 he worked as an assistant in a pizzeria takeaway from the university area”.
And to pay homage to his memory there is also Setareh who struggles to hold back tears: “We met in one of the many parties here in Bologna, it was nice to meet other Iranian people. Today I find it hard to believe this bad news because it is not possible that, even today, a boy has to die at the hands of a murderous regime”.
Around the photos of Medhi and at candles that draw his name, a flag with the colors of Iran reads “Free Iran”. And, as another friend of Medhi, Hekmat, recalls, “we dream of a free Iran”.