In publishing this important disclosure, CODIR believes that this is a profoundly significant update about the scale of the reported massacre of innocent people in Iran during 8 – 10 January protests. It shifts the focus from political maneuvering to the human cost of the conflict, specifically targeting the most vulnerable in society.

The Coordinating Council of Iranian Teachers’ Trade Associations (CCITTA) has published the names of 150 students killed in the recent Iranian protests via its Telegram channel. These 150 children have been highlighted as symbols of the violence inflicted upon childhood, education, and the nation’s future. The Council emphasizes that these lost lives are not merely ‘statistics,’ but rather a documented record of the violence imposed upon children’s lives and their right to learn.

The deaths of these children are described as the direct result of a specific set of policies: the policy of suppression, the ‘cheapening of human life,’ the gunning down of dreams, and the removal of the child from the equation of the future. ‘Empty desks’ are presented as a sign of what has been stripped from society—including the ability to live, the right to learn, and the right to grow up without fear.

The Coordinating Council points out that these children were ‘erased’ multiple times even before their deaths: removed from schools, from the streets, from official narratives, and from the memory that the government seeks to control. According to the text, recording and preserving these names is an act of resistance against this erasure and an effort to prevent the normalization of child death.

In conclusion, the publishers state that the goal of releasing this list is not to provoke ‘momentary tears,’ but to prevent the repetition and normalization of the killing of children. It is intended so that no one can claim they ‘did not know,’ and to ensure that the educational system does not remain neutral toward the ‘politics of death.’ Highlighting the demand for accountability, justice, and an end to ‘structural infanticide,’ the text reminds us: as long as these desks remain empty, no future is legitimate.