The police are to blame for the death of a young Iranian woman, a documentary showed. The regime wanted to cover everything up

The death of 16-year-old Nika Šakaramiová two years ago became a symbol of protests against the radical Islamist regime in Iran.

A young Iranian woman disappeared after she set fire to her hijab at one of the demonstrations while chanting the slogan “death to the dictator”, which referred to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei.

She was detained by security forces on her way home from the center of Tehran. During the transfer to custody, one of the police officers sexually assaulted the girl, and a fight broke out on the spot, in which Šakaramiová suffered fatal injuries.

The circumstances of the incident, about which the Iranian government has been silent for a long time, have now been brought closer by the British public broadcaster BBC, which obtained a document written by the security forces.

The family did not hear from the girl for several days. Relatives only watched as their daughter’s Instagram and Telegram accounts disappeared from the social networks, as Iranian security forces often demand detainees to give them access to their accounts on the networks.

A futile search in hospitals and police stations lasted for ten days and ended only when the authorities announced that the girl had died. According to them, it was supposed to be a suicide.

The government subsequently put pressure on Šakarami’s relatives to admit a different cause of death.

The girl’s mother for Radio Farda, the Persian branch of Radio Free Europe, https://twitter.com/PardisShafafi/status/1578008740397125634?s=20&t=a7s7fD07eJJL6DRKAxaSOw, that she faced intimidation. “They killed my daughter and now they are threatening me to make false confessions,” she said.

Protests for women’s rights in Iran

The girl’s death and the authorities’ apparent efforts to cover it up have sparked another wave of backlash among demonstrators at Iran’s anti-government protests. An investigation into her death was also demanded by people at demonstrations elsewhere in the world, for example in London.

Nika Šaharami’s story is very similar to what happened to 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahse Aminí, who was detained by the police because she was wearing a hijab that was too loose. With this scarf, a Muslim woman is supposed to cover her hair and cleavage, and women in Iran have been required to wear it in public since the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

Aminíová died in the custody of the Iranian morality police. Authorities say she suffered a heart attack, but a UN investigation says she died as a result of police brutality.

Aminí’s death then ignited demonstrations that grew into the largest demonstrations against the authoritarian regime since the Islamic Revolution. However, the Iranian government cracked down hard on them and, according to NGOs, more than 500 people died.

Another nearly 20,000 were arrested. Many subsequently ended up in prison, dozens of people were executed.

The protests, which the Iranian regime blamed on the West, died down after several months due to a bloody crackdown by security forces.

After them, Iran’s morality police reduced its activities, and in the first months it seemed that the regime had at least relented on this matter and the mandatory headscarf would become a thing of the past. Last summer, however, the government renewed the morality police, which is now supposed to focus on the wearing of hijabs.

Last week, the regime fully restored the so-called hijab patrols on the streets, which are supposed to supervise the “morality” of women. They detained many women and girls in the very first days.