The mother of a 16-year-old Iranian girl has disputed official claims that her daughter fell to her death from a high-rise building, saying the teenager died from blows to the head as part of a crackdown on the protests against the hijab that shook the country. .
Nasreen Shakarami also said authorities kept her daughter Nika’s death a secret for nine days and then took her body from a morgue to bury her in a remote area, against the family’s wishes. The grieving mother spoke in a video message on Thursday on Radio Farda, the Persian-language arm of the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty broadcaster.
Nika Shakarami has become the latest icon of the protests, seen as the most serious threat to Iran’s ruling elites in years. Attempts by authorities in recent days to describe the teenager’s death as an accident could signal concerns that the incident could further fuel anger against the government.
The protests, which enter their fourth week on Saturday, were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the moral police. Amini had been detained for alleged violations of the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
Amini was arrested on September 13 in Tehran for “improper clothing” for allegedly not wearing the hijab properly. Authorities have said she suffered a heart attack after being taken to a police station to be “educated.”
Young women have often led the protests, tearing themselves up and defiantly waving their headscarves as they call for the government to be overthrown.
The protests quickly spread to communities across Iran and have faced a harsh government crackdown, including beatings, arrests and killings of protesters, as well as internet blackouts.
Human rights groups estimate that dozens of protesters have been killed in the past three weeks. On Thursday, the London-based group Amnesty International released its findings on what appears to be the deadliest incident to date: in the town of Zahedan on 30 September.
The report said Iranian security forces killed at least 66 people, including children, and wounded hundreds, after firing live on protesters, bystanders and worshipers in a violent crackdown that day. Iranian authorities claimed that the violence in Zahedan involved unnamed separatists. Since then, more than a dozen people have died in the area, according to the report.
Meanwhile, Nika Shakarami’s mother rejected officials’ attempts to frame her daughter’s death as an accident.
The mother says he died of blows to the head
In his video message, he said the forensic report showed Nika had died from repeated blows to the head.
Nika’s body was intact, but some of her teeth, facial bones and part of the back of her skull were broken, he said. “The damage was to his head,” he said. “His body was intact, arms and legs.”
Earlier this week, Iran’s police chief, General Hossein Ashtari, claimed that the teenager had gone to a building “and fell from the top floor at the time of meetings”. He said that “the fall from that height caused her death.”
Nasreen Shakarami said her daughter left her home in Tehran on the afternoon of September 19 to join the anti-hijab protests. He said he was in contact with Nika by phone several times over the next few hours, begging her to come home. They spoke for the last time before midnight. “Nika’s mobile phone was then switched off, after she and her friends shouted names of forces as they fled,” he said.
The next morning, the family looked for Nika in police stations and prisons, but for nine days there was no news of her whereabouts. Authorities finally handed over the body on the 10th and the family headed to Khoramabad city for burial, he said. The authorities repeatedly demanded to take possession of the body, which was in the meantime stored in the Khoramabad morgue.
Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad said the teenager’s Telegram, WhatsApp and Instagram accounts were deactivated sometime on September 20.
On the day of the scheduled funeral, the family learned that the body had been taken from the morgue and taken to a remote village for burial, under heavy security, Nasreen Shakarami said.
Since the confirmation of his death, Nika has emerged as another icon of the protests, alongside Amini. A photo of Nika, wearing a black T-shirt with a sleek haircut and two-toned eyeliner, has been widely shared on social media.
The aunt and uncle were arrested
Authorities arrested Nasreen Shakarami’s brother and sister. The sister, Atash, later told Iranian television that her niece fell from a tall building.
Nika’s mother said she believes her siblings had been pressured to go along with the official version.
Iran has a long history of spreading forced confessions.
Also on Friday, the official IRNA news agency quoted the coroner’s office as saying that examinations found that Mahsa Amini died of cerebral hypoxia, in which the supply of oxygen to the brain decreases. He said he suffered multiple organ failure but “his death was not caused by blunt force trauma to the head, organs and vital parts of the body.”
He said Amini suffered cardiac arrhythmia, hypotension and loss of consciousness before being taken to a hospital.
Amini’s family rejected the coroner’s report because authorities had not consulted with medical specialists as requested by the family, BBC Persian reported.
Mahsa Amini’s father has previously said her corpse showed clear signs of being beaten and said he holds the police responsible for her death. His family has also denied that he had any heart problems.
The coroner’s report did not say if he had suffered any injuries.
Iran denies that security forces killed the second teenager
On Friday, Iranian authorities said another teenage protester killed himself by falling from a roof.
However, reports on social media and the rights group Amnesty International have said that 16-year-old Sarina Esmaeilzadeh was killed by security forces when she was hit on the head with batons during protests over death of Mahsa Amini.
A woman cuts her hair during a protest against Iran’s Islamic regime and the death of Mahsa Amini outside the Iranian embassy in Madrid on Thursday. (Juan Medina/Reuters)
The chief judge of Alborz province where Esmaeilzadeh died said a preliminary investigation showed her death was caused by suicide by falling from the roof of a five-story building, the semi-official ISNA news agency.
Chief Justice Hossein Fazeli Herikandi said opposition media claims about his death were “lies”.
“According to his mother’s account, Esmaeilzadeh had a history of suicide attempts,” he said. Police received a report of his death on September 24, he said.