A Smile at the Gallows: The Last Stand of Majid and Hossein Kavousifar

 On a hot, tense morning—August 2, 2007—in the heart of Tehran, the air was thick with anticipation and quiet dread. Crowds gathered near Evin Prison, where a makeshift gallows had been erected. Two men, uncle and nephew, were led to the nooses with their hands bound and their chins held high. Their names: Majid Kavousifar and Hossein Kavousifar.

They weren’t unknown figures. Just months earlier, they had carried out one of the boldest political assassinations in modern Iranian history—gunning down Judge Masoud Moghaddasi, a prominent figure in the Islamic Revolutionary Court. To some, Moghaddasi was a symbol of state order. To others, especially those who had lost loved ones to Iran’s 1988 political executions, he was a ghost of horror walking in daylight. He had been one of the judges responsible for sentencing between 2,800 and 3,800 political prisoners—many of them young students, activists, and intellectuals—to death in secret.

Majid, who had once been an ordinary man, had made an extraordinary choice. He’d decided to take justice into his own hands—not for personal gain, but, as he claimed, in the name of those who could no longer speak.

As he stood before the hangman, his face betrayed no fear. In his final words, spoken with a kind of clarity that stung sharper than any confession, he declared:

“My name is Majid Kavousifar. I am Iranian.
I didn’t wait for someone in this world to give me my right.
I reached the point at which I decided to eradicate any injustice.
I smile because I know that a small smile at that moment will be a great message of hope for every oppressed human being on the face of the earth.”

And indeed, he did smile—an eerie, defiant smile that froze in time. It wasn’t the smile of someone who expected redemption. It was the smile of a man who had already made peace with the price he chose to pay.

Beside him, Hossein—just 22 at the time—stood silently, his eyes fixed on the horizon. Though less vocal than his uncle, he followed him into death with the same fierce resolve.

When the trapdoors opened, the world didn’t stop—but in some corners of Iran, and far beyond, people remember that moment. Not for the spectacle of it, but for the echo it left behind.

To many, Majid’s final smile became a symbol. A symbol of resistance. A flicker of light for those still trapped in the shadows of fear. And while his actions remain controversial, his message lives on in the hearts of those who dream of a freer Iran.

History may not agree on whether he was a hero or a criminal. But it will not forget that, on that summer morning in Tehran, a man smiled at the gallows—and with that smile, tried to shake the conscience of a nation.