Iran arrests family of slain protester for speaking out

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- The family of Pouya Bakhtiari, an Iranian protester killed early on in the two-week protests, has been arrested for speaking out against the killing of protesters, with one source telling semi-official Mehr News that the family became part of a “conspiracy”.

 Mehr News, semi-official state news agency, quoted “an informed source” announcing that the family of Pouya Bakhtiari was arrested today based on judicial orders, claiming the family was used in a “conspiracy” on Tuesday.

Other Iranian media reports say that Armita Ibrahimi, the sister of a dentistry student named Arsham who was killed by government security forces on November 16th in Isfahan, has also been summoned to the Office of the Ministry of Intelligence in Isfahan.

On November 15, nationwide protests erupted in Iran after the government announced a 300% hike in petrol prices. Already hard-hit by harsh economic sanctions from the US, the Iranian public’s anger boiled over at the news of the petrol price hike and thousands of people took to the streets where they were met with force.

 “The enemies of the honorable people of Iran who are not satisfied with the economic terrorism and the intensification of sanctions...they insist on riots, creating conspiracies about killings and using some families of the victims as a tool in their conspiracy,” the Mehr News source was quoted as saying.

“One of the families, whose child was killed in the recent riots in suspicious circumstances, is the family of Pouyah Bakhtiari. Despite inviting and speaking to them, they have become part of the anti-revolutionary conspiracy,” claimed the source.

“Therefore, based on a judicial warrant, in order to keep the integrity of the establishment and the security of the honorable people, and in order to prevent the continuation of the conspiracy of the killings, and the continuation of the armed activities against the people, these individuals were arrested,” further revealed the source.

The mother of Pouya Bakhtiari, Nahid Shirpisheh, confirmed in a video message to Iranian activist Masih Alinejad that her family have been summoned by the Ministry of Intelligence. "I ask my son Pouya's spirit to empower me to speak up against the unjust shedding of his blood,” Shirpishehm is seen saying in the video, which was published today.

 "Pray for us so that we may reclaim our rights from these oppressors," she added as she walked away to go to the Ministry of Intelligence.

According to Amnesty International, at least 304 people were killed and thousands more injured in the protests between November 15 and November 18. Several thousand people were arrested and many of them subjected to torture, according to Iranian human rights organizations.

Reuters on Monday cited multiple sources from Iran claiming that 1,500 people were killed. Pouya Bakhtiari, a 27-year old electrical engineer, was shot in the head in the early days of the protests in Tehran.

Iranian dissidents, both in Iran and abroad, have declared December 26, the 40th day since his death, a day of commemoration.

"My son loved Persian poetry and Iran's history, and in the meantime was planning to emigrate to Canada," Manouchehr Bakhtiari, the father of Pouya, told US government -funded Radio Farda. Radio Farda is banned in Iran.

While many families of slain protesters remain silent for fear of regime retaliation, the family of Pouya has been vocal about their son’s death, much to the ire of the regime in Tehran.

“They aimed at my son’s head and deliberately killed him,” Nahid Shirpisheh, the mother of Pouya, told the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) in an interview on December 3.

“If they had a problem with the protests and wanted to disperse the crowds, they could have used tear gas or fired bullets into the air. They could have at least shot him in the leg. Why did they shoot at my son’s head? Did they have the right to disperse a crowd by taking away a human being’s life? Who gave them that right?” added Shirpisheh.

Other families have also started to speak out.

The mother of Ibrahim Kitabdar, another killed protester, also sent a video message to Masih Alinejad, holding a portrait of her deceased son with a black banner and a text that reads “You will be in our memories forever.”

The mother of Kamal Faraji, a carpenter from Islamsheher city who was killed while protesting on November 17, also sent a video message to an Iranian news outlet. In the video, the mother asks, “Who can I take my pain to?”

Asked by Iranian parliamentarians why so many protesters were shot in the head when less lethal methods of crowd control could have been employed, Minister of the Interior Abdolreza Rahmani Fazli answered, “We shot them in the leg too.”

US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated during remarks at a human rights symposium in Washington DC on Thursday that asked the Iranian people to send evidence of the “brutality of the Iranian regime” to the US government. 

He stated, “We’re bringing to light what the ayatollahs are desperate to keep in the dark.  So far we’ve received more than 36,000 pieces of information, and we’re working each and every one of them.”

Despite their bravery in coming forward and demanding accountability from the regime, the families of people like Pouya are far from getting any justice. Iranian authorities have insisted that the nationwide protests were a foreign plot that has been defeated.

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