Iran accuses journalists after BBC report on death of teenage protester

Iran’s judiciary brought charges against “several journalists and activists” following the publication of a BBC report alleging that men working for security forces sexually assaulted and killed a 16-year-old protester.

The judiciary-run Mizan news agency described BBC Eye’s investigation into Nika Shakarami’s death in 2022 as “false, incorrect and full of errors”.

It did not identify the individuals summoned for allegedly “disturbing the psychological safety of society”.

But two Iranian journalists who commented on the report online said prosecutors had opened cases against them.

One of them, Mohammad Parsi, wrote on Twitter/X that the Tehran Public Prosecutor’s Office had summoned him for publishing an “article about Nika Shakarami and the details of her murder.”

The second, Marzieh Mahmoodi, posted that “neither the charges nor the details are known.”

On Wednesday, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi dismissed the findings of the BBC investigation as a conspiracy by Iran’s enemies, becoming the first official to comment publicly.

“The enemies and their media outlets resorted to false and unrealistic reports to carry out psychological operations,” he told journalists outside a cabinet meeting, according to state media.

Vahidi said it was “an attempt to divert attention” from the current pro-Palestinian protests in the US, as well as Iran’s missile and drone attack on Israel last month.

There was no immediate comment from BBC News on the statements from Mr Vahidi and the judiciary.

Nika Shakarami has become a symbol of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement that shook the Islamic Republic two years ago.

The protests erupted in response to the death in custody on September 16, 2022, of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by morality police in the capital for allegedly wearing her hijab “inappropriately”.

On September 20, 2022, Nika was filmed at a protest in Tehran setting her headscarf on fire, while other protesters shouted “death to the dictator” – a reference to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

She disappeared that night after telling a friend she was being pursued by security forces.

His family finally found his body in a morgue more than a week later. They claimed she died from blows to the head and rejected authorities’ claims that she killed herself by jumping from the roof of a building.

The BBC Eye investigation, published on Monday, was based on what is understood to be a leaked internal document summarizing a hearing into Nika’s case held by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

According to the document, the teenager was detained by members of a paramilitary group deployed by the IRGC as a secret team to monitor protests in Tehran that day.

The document details a series of events that allegedly happened while Nika was trapped in the back of an unmarked frozen van along with three members of the team. These include:

• One of the men molested her while sitting on top of her

• Despite being handcuffed and restrained, she fought back, kicking and swearing.

• An admission that this provoked the men to beat her to death with batons

• An IRGC officer ordered the men to dump his body in the street

The BBC report acknowledges that there are numerous fake Iranian official documents in circulation, but states that “extensive investigations indicate that the documents we obtained chronicle the teenager’s last movements.”

The BBC also presented the allegations to the IRGC and the Iranian government before publication and they did not respond.