She went missing on 20 September after leaving home to take part in the demonstration in the capital Tehran. Iran has been ravaged by violence and protests following the death of Mahsa Amini on 16 September. The family did not find Nika until 1 October. Then her body was in a cold room at the police station. Now she is about to become a new symbol of the fight for basic human rights for women in priest-ruled Iran. In a video sent to media critical of the regime based abroad, mother Nasrin Shakarami said that the authorities had murdered her, reports AFP. She blamed the Iranian authorities for making threats to make her lie about how the teenager died. From a demonstration against the hijab mandate in Iran the day before Nika disappeared. Photo: WANA NEWS AGENCY / Reuters – I saw her body myself. The back of the head showed that she had received a serious blow, as her skull was smashed in. – My daughter was killed in the protests on the same day she disappeared. Then, last night, Nika’s aunt and uncle appeared on state television. They told a completely different story. Put questions to shadow in recording – Nika died when she fell from a building, says her aunt, Atash, in the pre-recorded clip. Her uncle, Mohsen, was also interviewed. He spoke against the demonstrations in the country, while someone in the background sounded like they were whispering: “say it, you scumbag”. This, and a shadow that appears behind him in the recording, made many people wonder if he was speaking of his own volition. Nika’s mother blames the Iranian authorities for killing her. Nika’s sister has since said that the aunt “was forced to make these confessions and broadcast them,” in a video published Thursday on Radio Farda, a Persian radio channel based in Prague. Their mother, Nasrin, says the authorities have tried to call her several times, but that she refuses to pick up the phone. – I certainly don’t need to try so hard to prove that they lie, she says. Difference between judicial declaration and death certificate A judicial official in Tehran, Mohammad Shahriari, told state media on Wednesday that the autopsy of Nika showed several “broken bones”. He said these were in the pelvis, head, upper and lower body, and that this “indicates that the person was thrown from a high place”. He thought these injuries were proof that the death had nothing to do with the demonstrations. A death certificate from a cemetery in the capital, which BBC Persian has obtained access to, claims that Nika died as a result of “several injuries caused by blows with a hard object”. Nika Shakarami was secretly buried a day after what would have been her 17th birthday. The relatives wanted to bury Nika in the western city of Khorramabad, on what would have been her 17th birthday, her aunt wrote on social media. A source close to the family tells the BBC that the family agreed, under pressure, not to hold a public funeral. The same source claims that the body of the teenager was still stolen from Khorramabad and then secretly buried in the village of Veysian, around 40 kilometers away. Several hundred protesters are said to have gathered at the cemetery in Khorramabad after this and shouted “death to the dictator”, aimed at the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Holds Iranian authorities responsible In a post on its website on Thursday, the Oslo-based organization Iran Human Rights says it holds the authorities in Iran responsible for Nika Shakarami’s death. The IHR writes that the claims of the Iranian authorities about how Nika died are based on recordings that have been tampered with and are grainy. Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam is head of Iran Human Rights in Oslo. Photo: PETTER BERNTSEN / AFP They also write that the family members’ “forced, televised confessions under pressure are unacceptable” – This evidence points to the government’s role in the murder of Nika Shakarami, unless the opposite is proven by an independent investigation overseen by United Nations. – Until such a committee is in place, the responsibility for the murder of Nika, like other victims of the demonstrations that are happening now, will lie with Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the forces he commands.
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– We are forced to lie about how she died – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
