BEIRUT — Hundreds of mourners attended the Tehran funeral on Monday of 19-year-old Sohrab Aarabi, a young man whose body was returned to his family after nearly a month of frantic searching by friends and relatives. He had disappeared June 15 during a protest against the disputed re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
“I won’t remain silent,” said Aarabi’s mother, Parvin Fahimi, the reformist Iranian news website reported. “The authorities were playing with me all this time,” she added. “My son had been killed, but they refused to tell me.”
The story of Aarabi’s death and his mother’s quest is becoming an emotionally potent narrative of an emerging protest movement. It follows the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, a 26-year-old aspiring tour guide killed during a June 20 demonstration, who also became a symbol of the movement.
Aarabi was to begin college this fall but disappeared June 15, the day of the first large demonstration against Ahmadinejad, who is accused by opposition candidates of vote-rigging in the June 12 balloting.
Video reportedly taken during the funeral shows mourners chanting “God is great,” a call that has been taken by the protest movement.
