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Killing of Nika Shakarami

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Nika Shakarami
نیکا شاکرمی
Born(2005-10-02)2 October 2005
Lorestan province, Iran
DiedSeptember 2022(2022-09-00) (aged 16)
Tehran, Tehran province, Iran
NationalityIranian

Nika Shakarami (Persian: نیکا شاکرمی; 2 October 2005 – September 2022) was an Iranian teenager who disappeared on 20 September 2022 in Tehran during the 2022 Iranian protests following the death of Mahsa Amini. She was found dead by her family ten days later, having died under suspicious circumstances suspected to involve violence by security forces. After her body was identified by her family, they made arrangements to bury her in Khorramabad, but the body was stolen by Iranian authorities and instead buried in Veysian, allegedly in order to avoid a funeral procession and to suppress further protest.

Background

Nika Shakarami was born on 2 October 2005[1] in the Lorestan province.[2] Little is publicly known of her background.[3] She had family ties to Khorramabad in southwestern Iran,[3] the city having been her father's hometown.[1][4] She was the second child in the family.[2] Shakarami lived with her aunt[5][6] in Tehran, the capital of Iran,[5][7] and worked in a coffee shop.[5] She moved to Tehran after the death of her father. Shakarami was reportedly very interested in painting.[2]

Disappearance and death

Shakarami participated in the Mahsa Amini protests of September 2022, sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody and aimed at increasing women's rights in Iran. She went missing after protesting on Keshavarz Boulevard[8] in Tehran on 20 September.[4] Shakarami left her house around 5 pm and brought with her a bottle of water and a towel as protection against tear gas.[6] She was reportedly "fearless" during the protest and continued to ceaselessly chant slogans.[9] According to her family her last known communication was a message sent to one of her friends in which she claimed to be chased by security forces.[4][7][10] Apparently, she had been separated from her friends as the protests grew more crowded and louder.[5] Her friends last saw her around 7 pm.[11] On the night of 20 September, Shakarami's Telegram and Instagram accounts were deleted and her phone was turned off.[7]

After not hearing from her, Shakarami's family began searching police stations and hospitals.[10] They also posted pictures of her on social media in the hope that someone would recognize her.[5] Ten days later[1][4] they were informed that someone with similar characteristics had been discovered during forensics of dead protesters[12] and they finally found her body at the Kahrizak morgue,[7] located in a local detention center.[1][4] Shakarami's family members were not allowed to see the body, only to look at her face for a few seconds for identification purposes.[1][4] The authorities reportedly informed them that she had died through falling from a great height.[12] They were shown a photograph of her lifeless body at a sidewalk to illustrate this but they found the picture to be suspicious.[7][8] Shakarami's aunt claimed in an interview that Shakarami's nose had been completely destroyed and that her skull had been "broken and disintegrated from multiple blows of a hard object",[10] perhaps a baton.[5][8][12] The family were told that Shakrami had been captured, held and questioned by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps[10] for a week[9] and had then been detained for a short time at the Evin Prison.[6][10] Evin Prison is often accused of the rape and torture of prisoners.[6][13]

Burial

The family transported Shakarami's body to Khorramabad for burial, intending to hold the ceremony on 2 October, which would have been her seventeenth birthday. The family however claims that security forces pressured them into not holding a funeral ceremony and instead bury her in silence.[14] Shakarami's aunt defied such pressure and posted on Twitter, inviting anyone interested to join the celebration of Shakarami's "last birthday".[15] Shakarami's aunt was thereafter arrested in her home on 2 October and other family members were threatened that she would be executed if they participated in the protests.[1][4] The rest of the family were also forced to agree to not organize a public funeral ceremony.[15]

Despite reaching an agreement that there would be no funeral,[15] Shakarami's family further claim that the authorities then stole Shakarami's body and buried her in Veysian, about 40 kilometres away,[1][4][10][16] in order to avoid publicity[15] and prevent her grave becoming a pilgrimage site for protesters.[14] Iranian authorities have previously used the bodies of dead protesters to silence their families.[16][17]

Reactions

Hundreds of protesters gathered in the cemetery of Khorramabad on the day Shakarami's funeral would have been held, spurred into action by the theft of her body.[1][4][10][16] Activists accused the Iranian government of abusing, torturing and killing Shakarami.[7] The news of her death led to high school girls joining the anti-government protests in large numbers on 4 October;[18] the schoolgirls joining the protests was called an "unprecedented show of support" by David Gritten of BBC News.[19]

The death of Shakarami and the theft of her body was widely reported on in the international media.[4][7][10][16] She was also widely commemorated on social media,[7] where her photo and name were circulated and her name became a hashtag used by the women's rights movement.[20] The BBC correspondent Nafiseh Kohnavard commemorated Shakarami by posting a video on Twitter of Shakarami standing on a stage, singing and laughing.[21] The song sung by Shakarami in the clip is an old Iranian love song from the film Soltane Ghalbha (1968).[14] The BBC also shared videos of Shakarami speaking at the current protests.[7]

The state-aligned Iranian news agency Islamic Republic News Agency has reported that the authorities have opened their own investigation into Shakarami's death.[22] Dariush Shahoonvand, prosecutor in the Lorestan province, denied any wrongdoing on the part of Iranian authorities and claimed that Shakarami had been buried in "her village" and that "foreign enemies" were to blame for creating a "tense and fearful atmosphere" following her death,[7][20] though he did not elaborate further on what he meant.[20] Shakarami's uncle later spoke on her death in an interview with the newspaper Hamshahri and echoed the government-aligned sentiments of Shahoonvand. Her uncle lamented Shakarami's brutal and suspicious death but also expressed doubt that the authorities were responsible, citing religious and legal hurdles, instead blaming social media radicalization and suggesting that she had been killed by protesters from Lorestan wishing to inspire more protests in Lorestan itself. In response to the anti-government statements of Shakarami's aunt, who strongly blamed her death on the authorities, he dismissed her as "not a political person". He also claimed that burying Shakarami in Veysian rather than in Tehran had been the family's choice due to worries that "her killer" was in Tehran and could disturb the ceremony.[2]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h "Iranian authorities 'stole body of teenage protester'". Middle East Eye. 4 October 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  2. ^ a b c d "جزئیات جدید مرگ مشکوک نیکا شاکرمی | دایی مادر نیکا: شاید به تظاهرات رفته باشد اما ... | جمجمه و سر او متلاشی شده است | چرا پیکر نیکا در تهران دفن نشد؟". Hamshahri (in Persian). 4 October 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  3. ^ a b Daragahi, Borzou (4 October 2022). "Editor's letter: We can only be in awe of young women such as Nika Shakarami". The Independent. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Ghobadi, Parham (4 October 2022). "Iran: Teen protester Nika Shakarami's body stolen, sources say". BBC News. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  5. ^ a b c d e f "نیکا شاکرمی، نوجوان ۱۷ ساله‌ای که پیکرش پس از ۸ روز پیدا شد". Radio Zamaneh (in Persian). Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  6. ^ a b c d Ali, Haniya (5 October 2022). "İran'da Mahsa Amini protestolarında hayatını kaybeden genç kadınlar". BBC News Türkçe (in Turkish). Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  7. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Nika Shakarami: Tod der Jugendlichen befeuert Proteste in Iran". Der Spiegel (in German). 4 October 2022. ISSN 2195-1349. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  8. ^ a b c "Iran: Nose smashed, skull pounded; security forces return body of another young woman with suspicious injuries". Firstpost. 2 October 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  9. ^ a b "15th day of Iran protests; 300 killed, 15,000 arrested". NCRI Women Committee. 30 September 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  10. ^ a b c d e f g h "Iran authorities 'stole' body of beaten teen Nika Shakarami". The National. 4 October 2022. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  11. ^ "پیکر آسیب دیده دختر معترض و مفقود به خانواده‌اش تحویل شد". Iranwire (in Persian). Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  12. ^ a b c Joshi, Ritika (4 October 2022). "Teenager Killed In Iran Protests As Death Toll Rises". SheThePeople. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  13. ^ Mackey, Robert (28 August 2009). "Iranians Say Prison Rape Is Not New". The Lede.
  14. ^ a b c Mazza, Viviana (4 October 2022). "L'ultimo sfregio a Nika Shakarami, che cantava senza il velo ed è stata uccisa in Iran". Corriere della Sera (in Italian). Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  15. ^ a b c d Basiak, Paweł (4 October 2022). "Brutalnie zabili nastolatkę. Potem wykradli jej ciało". Interia Wydarzenia (in Polish). Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  16. ^ a b c d Botsjö, Markus (4 October 2022). "Regimen stal 16-åriga Nikas kropp". Aftonbladet (in Swedish). Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  17. ^ "Ιράν: Οι Αρχές έκλεψαν τη σορό 16χρονης διαδηλώτριας - Την έθαψαν κρυφά από την οικογένειά της". Proto Thema (in Greek). 4 October 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  18. ^ Graham-Harrison, Emma; Foumani, Maryam (4 October 2022). "Iranian schoolgirls take up battle cry as protests continue". The Guardian. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  19. ^ Gritten, David (4 October 2022). "Iran schoolgirls remove hijabs in protests against government". BBC News. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  20. ^ a b c "As protests spread to universities, Iran's president tries to ease unrest". CBC News. 4 October 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
  21. ^ Hooper, Olivia (4 October 2022). "Nika Shakarami: Iranian Teen Body Allegedly 'Stolen' By Security Forces". Morocco World News. Retrieved 4 October 2022.
  22. ^ "Stegrad iransk ilska efter tonårings död". Västerbottens-Kuriren (in Swedish). 5 October 2022. Retrieved 5 October 2022.
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