As unrest erupted across Iran calling for an end to Islamic Republic rule last month, with young women in big cities and small towns tossing their headscarves over bonfires to chant ” Women, Life, Freedom,” two teenage girls left home to join the protesters.
That was the last time their loved ones saw them alive. A family frantically searched for their daughter for 10 days, posting desperate calls for information on social media; the other found out the fate of their daughter within hours of her disappearance.
But the dire results are still the same. The missing teenagers were killed by security forces, their families and human rights groups said. One girl’s skull was smashed, and the other’s head was cracked by blows with batons. Their bodies were returned to their families bruised and disfigured. Both are 16 years old.
Two teenagers – Nika Shakarami and Sarina Esmailzadeh – have become the new faces of the protest that has rocked the country over the past month, the largest and longest demonstration. civil unrest to contain Iran since 2009. Their images appear on secret posters plastered on walls in cities across Iran and on banners carried by protesters, their names are a rallying call for anger directed at the rulers of the Islamic Republic.
Women and girls were conspicuous on the front lines of the protests that erupted nearly a month ago, as did young people, even high school students, taking part, despite the protests. repetitive pressure of security services.
The crackdown has done some deadly damage: Iran’s Committee for the Protection of the Rights of the Child says 28 children and young people have been killed and many have been detained. United Nations Children’s Agency, UNICEF, speak This week, it was reported “of great interest”.
The families of the two teenagers and human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Iran Human Rights, said two girls were killed by security forces after participating in various protests in late September, Nika in Tehran, and Sarina in Karaj, a suburb of the capital. Security forces smashed Nika’s skull, broke her teeth and dislocated her cheekbones, her mother has said in interviews; Sarina’s head was broken after she was repeatedly beaten with a baton until she died bleeding.
Authorities say the two teenagers committed suicide by jumping off the roof. Family members have repeated that official story on state television, but relatives say the appearances were coerced, and they were threatened and even jailed to stop them. they say what really happened to Nika and Sarina.
In life, Nika and Sarina are cheerful teenagers singing and dancing, giggling with friends, hanging out in shopping malls and taking selfies, according to the video they shared. In death their faces have become symbols of a national uprising to overthrow the Islamic Republic that has thousands of young men on its front lines, and a young woman, Mahsa Amini22 years old, who died in the custody of the ethics police last month, as a spark of its inspiration.
More on protests in Iran
Young people like Nika and Sarina at the center of the uprising pose one of the biggest challenges facing Iran’s ruling clerics. They are tech-savvy, and many are detached from the political and religious ideology that defined previous generations.
Authorities have tried to crush them with violence and stop them by disrupting the internet and blocking popular social media platforms like Instagram.
It doesn’t work. Protests have spread from the streets to college campus and to high schools. High school girls across Iran removed their headscarves, ripped up pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and booed and kicked a guest speaker away from the frightened Basij militia, video posted on social media programs.
Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, deputy commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards Corps, said last week that the average age of detained protesters was 15. Yousef Nouri, Minister of Education, said on Thursday. Three that the arrested high school students were sent to “a mental health center for education and behavior reform.”
Ms. Amini, who died on September 16 in the custody of the ethics police who caused the protest, was arrested for failing to comply with the hijab law, which requires women to cover their heads. Her family has denied authorities’ claims she died of a heart attack, and said she suffered a head injury after being beaten by police.
Four days after Amini’s death, Nika rushed out the door of her home in Tehran to join the street protesters. She stood defiantly on top of a trash can, her dark hair tied in a ponytail, and waved the hijab she had burned as the crowd of young people around her chanted “death of the dictator,” according to the report. one video which her family confirmed to be authentic with Iranian journalists.
Nika lives with her aunt and works part-time at a cafe that trains bartenders. She dreams of going abroad after high school and loves singing. One video from a school ceremony showing her standing on stage and holding a microphone, giggling. She then sang a popular Iranian song, with the lyrics: “One heart says go, go, and another says don’t go, don’t go. My heart can’t be tormented, what should I do without you? “
Nika disappeared on the night of September 20 from a central avenue in Tehran, where security forces clashed with protesters. Her mother said in a video messages It was announced by Radio Farda that Nika’s last phone call was shortly before midnight and she could hear protesters and security forces shouting in the background.
Her family searched for her in detention centers but were unsuccessful. Her aunt, Atash Shakarami, who she lives with, posted a picture of Nika on her Instagram page seeking help. Ten days later, her family received a call from the authorities: they could collect her body from a morgue in downtown Tehran.
Nika’s mother Nassrin Shakarami, contacted by phone in Tehran on Wednesday, said she wanted to make her daughter’s story public and was living in “difficult conditions”. Nika’s aunt and uncle were both detained for days to pressure the family to remain silent, and the aunt was forced to repeat the official cause of death on state television, Shakarami said.
“They are threatening me. I said what I needed to say to explain what happened,” Ms. Shakarami said, referring to a message posted by Radio Farda in which she said that security forces had killed her daughter and exerted pressure. forced to call it a suicide.
Her conversation with The New York Times was abruptly interrupted and a recorded message from the state telecommunications company said her phone number had been disconnected.
Ms. Shakarami said in her video that security forces seized Nika’s body while the family was making funeral arrangements and buried her without the family’s knowledge. After public backlash, state television showed a video showing a young woman they claimed was Nika entering a building they said she had danced to. The girl’s mother said that the woman in the video is not her daughter.
Two days after Nika’s disappearance, Sarina Esmailzadeh joined a protest in Karaj, a satellite city west of Tehran, along with some classmates, according to human rights groups, and two Iranian journalists, Fereshteh Ghazi from Farda Radio and Farzad Seifikaran from Radio Zamaneh, both interviewed relatives. .
Sarina attended a high school in Karaj because of giftedness and talent, and she recorded YouTube the daily life and thinking of a typical teenager; Trying on makeup for the first time, making pizza and singing pop songs in the back of the car
Sarina said in a video. “But to have all of this, you need to have freedom.”
At the protest, security forces grabbed Sarina and hit her in the head repeatedly with batons, according to Amnesty International and Iran Human Rights. She was taken to the hospital, but the doctors in the emergency room could do little. She bled to death.
Sarina’s mother, who is being treated for a brain tumor, received a phone call from authorities around midnight to go to the hospital and identify her daughter, according to two journalists who interviewed the family and one newspaper. Report on Sarina of Iranian Human Rights. . Sarina’s father died when she was young and she lives with her mother and brother. At the hospital, they were not allowed to see Sarina.
At the funeral the next day, security forces took Sarina’s body, wrapped in a custom white cloth, and allowed the mother a glimpse of her face before they buried her. But it took long enough to realize that one side of her forehead had been smashed.
Sarina’s mother, who looked disoriented, appeared twice on state television, including on Tuesday, when she repeated the official line that Sarina had jumped from a building. Iran’s state television has a history of broadcasting forced interviews with dissidents and the families of those who have been killed.
Ms Ghazi, who has been in contact with Sarina’s relatives, said security forces had threatened that if Sarina’s mother did not confirm the official account, they would harm her son, her only child.
The grim consequences of Sarina’s death could not be more contrasted with the youthfulness of her life. “What could be better than being free and careless?” Sarina said in a video after Complete an exam and buy yourself a bottled iced coffee to treat. “It’s done, it feels great, Goodbye.”
