The Massacre of Dey and the Issue of Body-Handling Bags

Reza Haji Hosseini — What images of the Dey 1404 massacre remain in the collective memory of Iranians? For many, rows of body-carrying bags that families searched through in the hope of finding the body of their missing father, mother, child, sister, brother, or friend.

Eight months have passed since the massacre of protesters during the national revolution of Iranians, but images of killings and repression are still alive and keep returning to the minds and psyches of survivors and the general public.

For eight months, body-carrying bags have entered people’s everyday lives. Before that, these bags were more often seen as visual elements in cinema and television, or they drew attention during natural disasters and unforeseen incidents.

In the iconic images of suppressions in the protests of 1388, the Bloody Aban 1398, and the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in 1401, death is often shown together with the body itself; a fallen body in the street, on a hospital bed, or wrapped in a shroud.

In Dey, the lifeless bodies of protesters are concealed behind a zipper and a black covering. Faces are removed from the frame, and the rows of bags remain.

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