At 15, Iranian youth Ehsan Hosseinipour Hessarlou’s world was defined by the grind of child labour. By 18, he had traded those long hours for a football and a dream: studying architecture, designing a future built on his own terms. Today, that aspiration lies on death row.Ehsan was arrested alongside two 17-year-olds, Matin Mohammadi and Erfan Amiri, swept up in the fallout of the January 2026 protests, in which Iran’s brutal radical Islamist regime exterminated over 30,000 protesters, including children.Subscribe to gift this articleGift 5 articles to anyone you choose each month when you subscribe.Subscribe nowAlready a subscriber? Fetching latest articles