Iranian security forces have killed another schoolgirl after she ripped portraits of the founder of the Islamic Republic from her schoolbooks.
A riot squad stormed a secondary school in the eastern city of Iranshahr last Tuesday to find any trace of schoolgirls’ participation in the nationwide anti-government protests.
Schoolgirls across Iran have joined the nationwide protests in recent days, leading to clashes with teachers and armed security forces, who have arrested some teenage girls they suspect of having taken part in demonstrations.
Halwash news agency and Baloch Activists’ Campaign, which monitor human rights violations in the Balochistan region of Iran, reported the girl’s name as Parmis Hamnava.
Parmis Hamnava (pictured) was beaten to death by Iranian security forces after she ripped portraits of the founder of the Islamic Republic from her schoolbooks.
She suffered a nosebleed at school after being severely beaten by batons after security forces spotted her books without portraits of the founder of the Islamic Republic. She died a few hours after arriving at the hospital.
Schoolbooks in Iran start with a portrait and a quote from Rohullah Khomeini, the founder of the current regime.
Intelligence agencies later threatened her family and friends not to disclose her death to the media, Halwash reported.
‘Security guards stormed the school last Tuesday and searched the books of all the students, she had ripped pictures of Khomeini, for this crime, and they started beating her in front of other students,’ a source told Halwash.
‘Her nose was bleeding badly, and she was taken to a hospital… She died on Wednesday and was taken to Zahedan for burial,’ it added.
Local officials rejected the reports of her death and blamed ‘enemy media’ for spreading propaganda against the regime.
Iranian authorities have also blamed the media for ‘making up deaths’ for those who have been killed since the unrest began, including at least 32 children.
Clashes at Iran’s University of North Tehran shows a man in plain clothes (L) firing a weapon from a position among protesters at Iran’s University of North Tehran on October 30.
Iranshar, located in the Sistan and Balochistan province has seen violent clashes over the past few days.
Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchistan province, was the scene of a violent crackdown on September 30 in which security forces killed 92 people, including 12 children which was dubbed Zahedan’s Black Friday.
The protests were triggered by the killing of Mahsa Amini by Iranian forces in September. Her death was followed by days of angry rallies that then continued after the alleged rape of a 15-year-old girl by a police officer.
Two police officials in Zahedan were sacked last week.
Sistan and Baluchistan is one of poorest provinces in predominantly Shia Iran and home to a Baluch minority estimated to number up to 2 million people.
The September 16 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Tehran’s notorious ‘morality’ police has flared a wave of nationwide public anger against Iran’s clerical establishment.
Iranians gather in Arak to mourn the death of a demonstrator who was beaten to death by Iranian security forces on October 26.
Nationwide protests have broken out across Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in September. This image shows protesters clashing at the University of North Tehran on October 30.
Security services have unleashed a fierce crackdown on the mainly peaceful protests in which at least 253 people have been killed, including 34 children.
Schoolgirls apparently pose a major challenge to the political establishment in Tehran. Security and intelligence agencies are now considering how to suppress crowds of children calling for their freedom as they join the biggest demonstrations in Iran since 2019.
Iranian protesters rallied again Sunday, defying an order by the powerful Revolutionary Guards to stop the demonstrations, which are now in their seventh week.
The commander of Iran’s powerful Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Salami, warned protesters that Saturday would be their last day of taking to the streets.
‘We tell the youth and those who were deceived that today is the last day of the riots, and that they should not go to the streets again,’ Salami said.
A video posted on October 30, shows protesters avoiding projectiles during clashes at Iran’s University of North Tehran.
However, students gathered overnight and Sunday across Iran, even after Major General Hossein Salami, head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, had warned demonstrators: ‘Do not come to the streets!’
Security forces on Sunday fired gunshots and tear gas at a gathering of students in the flashpoint western city of Sanandaj, where videos showed billowing clouds of smoke amid chants of ‘freedom’, the Norway-based Hengaw organisation reported.
It also posted a video with the sound of echoing gunfire, and of a 12-year-old girl wailing with her bloody arm peppered with metal pellets, in reports AFP could not independently verify.
Security forces have struggled to contain the protests, which started with women taking to the streets and burning their hijab headscarves and which have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic republic founded in 1979.