{"id":27488,"date":"2022-11-20T09:45:45","date_gmt":"2022-11-20T09:45:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/?p=27488"},"modified":"2022-11-20T09:45:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-20T09:45:48","slug":"since-anti-regime-demonstrations-started-58-iranian-youngsters-are-said-to-have-died","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/2022\/11\/20\/since-anti-regime-demonstrations-started-58-iranian-youngsters-are-said-to-have-died\/","title":{"rendered":"Since anti-regime demonstrations started, 58 Iranian youngsters are said to have died"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At least 58 children, some reportedly as young as eight, have been killed in Iran since anti-regime protests broke out in the country two months ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA), 45 boys and 12 girls under 18 have been killed since the protests began on 16 September, sparked by the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in police custody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the past week alone, five children were reportedly killed by security forces as violence continued across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those who died last week include the nine-year-old Kian Pirfalak, who was one of seven people \u2013 including a 13-year-old child \u2013 killed in the western city of Izeh on Wednesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at Kian\u2019s funeral on Friday, his family said security services had opened fire on the family car, where Kian was sitting next to his father. Iranian security services have denied responsibility for his death, blaming the shooting on \u201cterrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran\u2019s mounting child death toll comes amid escalating violence in cities across the country, with protests showing no sign of abating.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Families in Iran spoke exclusively to the Observer about the death of their children, who they say were killed by government forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hassan Daroftadeh said his son Kumar had always told his family he would grow up to be a \u201cgreat man\u201d. Instead, they said, Kumar has become a martyr after dying on the streets of his home town of Piranshahr in west Iran on 30 October. His father said he died after being shot multiple times with metal pellets at close range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cKumar was just standing on the street. He didn\u2019t even say a word. I don\u2019t know with what conscience they martyred him. Piranshahr is a small town. There were no protests that night, yet they martyred my son. He was just a little boy,\u2019\u2019 said Daroftadeh. A video of Daroftadeh weeping by his son\u2019s grave went viral on social media.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m shattered. Kumar was his mother\u2019s lifeline,\u201d he said. \u201cThe Iranian regime denies killing him. They later said \u2018foreigners\u2019 have killed him. I don\u2019t know how the officer who killed my son hugs his own children. I don\u2019t know how he sleeps at night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Men<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same afternoon \u2013 which human rights groups have since called \u201cBloody Friday\u201d after 93 people were killed across Iran \u2013 Mohammad Eghbal, 17, was on his way to Friday prayers when he was shot in the back by a sniper in Zahedan, the capital of the Sistan and Baluchistan province. According to Amnesty International, 10 children were killed in Zahedan that day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mohammad Eghbal had worked as a construction worker from the age of nine to support his large family and had dreamed of saving up enough money to buy a smartphone so he could open an Instagram account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His last words were to a stranger, according to one of his relatives. \u201cHe asked a bystander, \u2018Please take my cellphone from my pocket and call my dad. Tell him I\u2019ve been shot.\u2019\u201d The relative added that when they arrived at the hospital to look for him, the family found a \u201cwar zone\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDead bodies were lying across the floor with the screams and cries of mothers filling the air,\u201d the relative said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The family member said that after his death, the teenager was labelled a terrorist in pro-regime media outlets. \u201cThey said Mohammad was a separatist. He was only a child, he had no idea about what being a separatist means. His father is even feeling worse than his mother. Mohammad used to sleep beside his dad at night.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the human rights group Hengaw, 12 children have died in the Kurdistan province since the beginning of the protests \u2013 and three died in the custody of Iranian special forces. An additional 200 Kurdish teenagers have been arrested and 300 injured after being fired on by government forces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week after Mohammad Eghbal died, the 17-year-old Abolfazl Adinehzadeh went into the streets of his home town of Mashhad and never came home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe buried Abolfazl with more than 50 shotgun pellets still inside his body,\u201d said a family member. \u201cThe medical team could only remove 27. We fear for his mother and sisters who are broken and will never be able to come to terms with his death.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His family said the teenager had been motivated to take to the streets out of love for his three sisters. \u201cAbolfazl was a well-mannered kid and, having been raised with three sisters, he was well aware of the challenges Iranian women face. He was truly a feminist who wanted equal rights for men and women,\u201d one of his relatives told the Observer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs soon as his sisters heard of the news [that he had been shot], they ran towards the street screaming his name. The entire family is inconsolable. He was adored by us all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young people have been at the forefront of anti-regime protests, which started after Mahsa Amini died in the custody of Iran\u2019s morality police. She had been arrested for not wearing her hijab correctly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The deaths of two teenage girls, Nika Shakamari and Sarina Esmailzadeh, both allegedly beaten to death by security forces for protesting, provoked further outrage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Videos of schoolgirls across the country protesting against their killing by removing their hijabs and taking down pictures of Iran\u2019s supreme leaders went viral on social media, leading to raids on schools where children were beaten and detained. According to Iran\u2019s teachers union, another 16-year-old girl, Asra Panahi, died after she was attacked by security forces in her classroom in the north-western town of Ardabil on 18 October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The attacks on children in schools is continuing, according to Hengaw, which said a 16-year-old girl from Kurdistan is on life support after throwing herself from a police van, having been arrested at her school last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

HRA says more than 38o protesters have been killed since the protests began and more than 16,000 people have been detained, including children. The figure is disputed by the authorities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At least 58 children, some reportedly as young as eight, have been killed in Iran since anti-regime protests broke out in the country two months ago. According to Human Rights Activists in Iran (HRA), 45 boys and 12 girls under 18 have been killed since the protests began on 16 September, sparked by the death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":27489,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[9951,8657,7167,11394,11183,11583,13175,9214,287,9331,9662,6083,5620,7234,10418,9387,5241,6738,5455,8057,6159,11844,7896,2264,5696,6825,8578,10840,11111,8394,10954,1759,8579,9515,10454,8145,6220,8006,12309,5612,10961,7968,7964,11973,8353,421,11171,6736,8810,5655,1383,11259,6365,5349,11325,6741,11444,7609,7231,6348,8033,5251,3954,5320,594,5140],"class_list":["post-27488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-age","tag-amnesty","tag-amnesty-international","tag-attacks","tag-boys","tag-capital","tag-car","tag-child","tag-children","tag-city","tag-dad","tag-dead","tag-dead-bodies","tag-death","tag-death-toll","tag-detained","tag-died","tag-families","tag-family","tag-fear","tag-fire","tag-foreigners","tag-funeral","tag-government","tag-hijab","tag-hospital","tag-human-right-activists","tag-human-rights","tag-injured","tag-instagram","tag-international","tag-iran","tag-izeh","tag-killed","tag-killing","tag-kurdish","tag-love","tag-mahsa-amini","tag-men","tag-money","tag-mothers","tag-nine","tag-north","tag-one","tag-outrage","tag-police","tag-protesters","tag-school","tag-schools","tag-security","tag-security-services","tag-shot","tag-smartphone","tag-social-media","tag-street","tag-teachers","tag-teachers-union","tag-terrorist","tag-union","tag-us","tag-video","tag-war","tag-will","tag-women","tag-who","tag-young"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27488","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}