Iran’s Judiciary Claims Sarina Ismaeilzadeh Committed Suicide
Hours after Iran’s judiciary claimed that Sarina Ismaeilzadeh, one of the deaths from ongoing protests in Iran, committed suicide, the Tasnim news agency published a video of statements attributed to her mother.
According to Mihan news agency, Hossein Fazeli Harikandi, head of the Alborz judiciary, on Friday, October 6, claimed that Sarina Ismaeilzadeh, whose name was previously listed by Amnesty International as one of those killed in the ongoing protests, jumped from the roof of a neighbor’s house behind her grandmother’s home in Azimiyeh, Karaj, in the early morning of October 2, and committed suicide.
Mr. Fazeli Harikandi, citing a forensic medicine report, stated that Ms. Ismaeilzadeh’s cause of death was “trauma, fractures, and bleeding resulting from a fall from height,” and claimed that she had “a history of a failed suicide attempt by pill consumption.”
The head of the Alborz judiciary also claimed that Sarina Ismaeilzadeh’s family, by appearing at the Karaj prosecutor’s office, requested the issuance of a denial.
Hours after this news was published, Tasnim news agency, affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, released a video in which Sarina’s mother, in response to a “journalist’s” question about media misuse of the “suicide” news, states that her daughter was “intelligent,” focused on her studies, and “was not inclined to such things.”
The broadcast of forced confessions from political prisoners and civil activists in Islamic Republic media outlets has a long history, but following the rise in recent political and social protests, the airing of forced confessions from ordinary citizens has also increased.
On Wednesday evening, October 4, Islamic Republic Radio and Television, in a visual report, showed Nika Shakarami’s aunt and uncle, among other deaths from the ongoing protests, repeating the claim of government media that she died as a result of “being thrown from a height.”
A few hours after this program aired, Nasrin Shakarami, Nika Shakarami’s mother, responded in a video message to the rumors and claims made by the government and its affiliated media about her daughter’s death.
Ms. Shakarami, in this video message provided exclusively to Radio Farda, spoke of threats and security pressures against her and that she is under pressure to repeat the government’s narrative and scenario regarding her daughter’s death.
Nika’s mother also said that her brother and sister, Mohsen and Atash Shakarami, have been detained and under severe pressure forced to make false confessions. Nika Shakarami, a 17-year-old teenager, went missing during protests on Keshavarzan Boulevard and, according to her mother, was killed as a result of “multiple blows to the head with hard objects” according to a forensic medicine certificate.
Government media and judicial officials of the Islamic Republic have claimed that she was “thrown” from the top of a building and killed, but Nika’s mother denies these claims.
Source: Radio Farda
