The young men and women below come from both wealth and poverty, from urban and rural areas. Whether high school teenagers or masters candidates, atheists or religious devotees, human rights advocates or political activists, they seek a forum for discussing their ideas; a safe space to protest and air their grievances. All too often they are silenced.

The students shown in the slideshow are selected based on the availability of photographs and details about their cases, regardless of their political affiliation. Their names are drawn from a list of more than 2,500 executed high school and university students in the Omid Memorial and from the Abdorrahman Boroumand Cetner’s list of more than 11,000 students punished or intimidated by the Islamic Republic’s judiciary, security and paramilitary forces, university disciplinary committees, and ideological and political bureaus. (Last update in 2012)