Sixteen-year-old Asra Panahi was among the Iranian students who refused to sing a pro-regime song. Image Courtesy: @javidirani30/Twitter
First it was Mahsa Amini and now it is Asra Panahi, Nika Shahkarami, Setareh Tajik and Sarina Esmailzadeh.
On Thursday, reports came in that another schoolgirl — Asra Panahi — was killed by the Iranian security services after she was beaten in her classroom for refusing to sing a pro-regime song when her school was raided last week.
A number of teenage girls are reported to been killed since anti-government protests swept across Iran a month ago. Activists and relatives have blamed security forces for their deaths — something authorities have denied.
What do we know about Panahi’s death?
On 13 October, it is reported that security officials raided the Shahed Girls High School in Ardabil and ordered a group of girls to sing a song praising the Islamic Republic.
When some students refused to participate, they were severely beaten, leading to a number of them being taken to hospital. Sixteen-year-old Panahi was also among them. On Friday, she reportedly died in hospital due to injuries sustained at the school.
The Coordinating Council of Teachers Syndicates in Iran confirmed in a post on its Telegram channel that Asra Panahi died following a raid by the security forces. They also condemned the “brutal and inhumane” raids and demanded resignation of Iran’s education minister, Yousef Nouri.
Iranian officials denied that its security forces were responsible, with state TV reporting that she had a heart problem.
Other schoolgirls targeted
The death of Asra Panahi reportedly at the hands of Iran’s security officials isn’t the only instance when a school girl has been the target.
Since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September, protests have broken out across the country and school girls have also joined in these demonstrations.
Videos on social media have gone viral showing girls in schoolyards and classrooms in Iran standing up to traditional symbols of authority.
Earlier, Masih Alinejad, Iran-American journalist-activist, tweeted the death of 17-year-old Setareh Tajik. The teenager, according to Alinejad, was beaten to death by Iranian regime when she was caught protesting Amini’s death.
Before this, on 23 September, there were reports that 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh, who posted popular vlogs on YouTube, was killed when the security forces beat her with batons at a protest in Gohardasht in Alborz province.
In one of her videos, she had said: “My homeland feels like being in exile.”
A statement by Amnesty International also claimed that Esmailzadeh’s family had been subjected to “intense harassment to coerce them into silence” — a claim that the authorities deny, saying she Iran denies this and says she took her own life by jumping off a building.
On 20 September, 16-year-old Nika Shakarami went missing after attending a march in Tehran over the death of Amini. Ten days later, authorities told Nika’s family her body had been found.
While they claimed she fell to her death, Nika’s mother, Nasrin Shahkarami told Radio Farda, a US-funded media outlet, that she was pressured to give a false statement.
She also said the authorities “stole” her daughter’s corpse so they could bury it in secret and have pressured the family to echo the official and inconsistent account of an apparent killing.
Amnesty International has reported that Iran’s security forces have killed at least 23 children since the protests broke out on 16 September over Mahsa Amini’s death. Amnesty in its statement said yhe victims included 20 boys aged between 11 and 17; and three girls, two of whom were 16-year- old and one 17-year-old. Most of the boys were killed by security forces unlawfully firing live ammunition at them. Two boys died after being shot with metal pellets at close range, while three girls and a boy died after fatal beatings by security forces.
Iranians protests 22-year-old woman Mahsa Amini’s death in Tehran. AP
Iran on boil
Since the death of Mahsa Amini, Iran’s young and old have been protesting the autocratic regime with women waving their headscarves in the air, confronting male police officers and shouting slogans.
Many celebrities have also come forward to support the women in Iran.
Iran’s Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates that at least 224 people have been killed, though widespread internet blackouts have made it difficult to confirm fatalities.
The situation in Iran has also prompted the European Union and the United States to adopt sanctions on Iran, with several condemning the regime’s brutal crackdown on protesters.
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock was quoted as saying, “When you see these terrible pictures of the fire in the prison, when you see that peaceful people, women, men and, increasingly, young people and schoolchildren continue to be brutally beaten then we cannot and will not close our eyes to this.”
She warned: “If this violence continues, then more will follow.”
With inputs from agencies
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