Nika Shakarami: Fury as Iran denies teenage girl was killed after joining protests
The death of a teenage girl has ramped up fury in Iran, where protesters are fighting for women's rights following the death of another young woman in police custody.
Reports claim Nika Shakarami, 16, vanished days after she joined the protests, and was found dead in a morgue a week later.
Protesters are sharing footage of Nika laughing and singing in a clip Persian news sources say was taken just days before her disappearance.
Nika, who lived in Iran capital with her mother, vanished one night last month during the protests in Tehran - according to her uncle Kianoush Shakarami, speaking to the Tasnim news agency.
The young woman was missing for a week before her body was returned to her family, Tasnim reported, adding relatives had not received official word on how she died.
Tasnim, a state news agency, reported her uncle saying she was found in the street. However foreign-based Iranian activists allege she died in police custody.
Thousands of supporters of girls and women protesting in Iran are circulating her photo, and the allegation she died at the hands of authorities and was returned to her family with severe injuries.
Nika's aunt told the BBC's Persian news service her body was then 'stolen' before she could be laid to rest, and was discovered buried secretly in a village away from her home.
Iranian security forces arrested eight people over Nika's death, Iranian media said on Tuesday.
Responding to the widespread allegations, the prosecutor in the western Lorestan province, Dariush Shahoonvand, denied any wrong-doing by authorities.
He said Nika was buried in her own village.
“Foreign enemies have tried to create a tense atmosphere after this incident,” he told the Hamshari daily, without elaborating on what happened to the teen.
Protests have continued to sweep Iranian university campuses this week, clips on social media and distributed by rights groups shows.
Videos uploaded on social media and distributed by human-rights activists showed students clapping and chanting slogans on various university campuses across the country.
Videos on social media showed students expressing solidarity with peers who had been arrested and calling for the end of the hardline Islamic Republic. Widespread demonstrations were sparked by the death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, while in the custody of the so-called "morality police" after she was arrested for not adhering enough to the country's strict dress code.
'They have put snipers on the rooftops to shoot at us but the more they kill, the more our rage will rise,' one student told ITV News on Monday
The protests entered a third week on Wednesday, despite government efforts to clamp down on demonstrators and embroiled dozens of cities across the country in the most widespread challenge to Iran’s leadership in years.
Iran’s security forces have sought to disperse demonstrations with tear gas, metal pellets, and in some cases live fire, rights groups say.
Iran’s state TV reports that violent confrontations between protesters and the police have killed at least 41 people, but human rights groups say the number is much higher.
More than 1,000 people have reportedly been detained.
Footage obtained by the Associated Press shows students at Al Zahra University chanting: "Wave your flag and show your fruit juice!" on Wednesday.
The protesters sometimes accuse hardliners of attending pro-government rallies only to get free fruit juice distributed by organisers.
At Guilan University of Medical Sciences on Tuesday, placards were emblazoned with the words: "Free the students!", "Freedom is our right!", "Ambulances are for carrying patients".
The ambulance comment is in reference to allegations that police are using ambulances to move their forces.
Protests took place at Al Zahra University and Guilan University of Medical Sciences earlier this week
Students at the Islamic Azad University chanted "freedom" as fireworks went off, while students at the University of Zanjan and the University of Medical Sciences were filmed shouting and clapping in clips from Monday verified by the Associated Press.
At Tarbiat Modares University, cries of "jailed students must be freed" and "freedom" could be heard, while at Khayyam University chants of "Sharif (university) has become a jail, Evin (prison) has become a university!" rang out on Monday.
The scenes at the Islamic Azad University, the University of Zanjan, the University of Medical Sciences, Tarbiat Modares University and Khayyam University
Meanwhile, a dramatic video on social media appeared to show schoolgirls in Tehran chasing a man out of a school while shouting "shameless" at him.
The girls, many of them without their mandatory hijab, or headscarf, are seen screaming at the man and throwing objects at him as he hurriedly leaves the scene.
Some videos also showed shopkeepers going on strike in the city of Isfahan amid the biggest challenge to government rule in Iran in years.
Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei responded publicly on Monday to the biggest protests in the country in years, breaking weeks of silence to condemn what he called "rioting".
He accused the United States and Israel of planning the protests.
Meanwhile on Wednesday, Iranian authorities summoned British ambassador Simon Shercliff for the second time in less than 10 days.
The authorities “strongly condemned the interventionist statements resorting to provocative and fake interpretations” by London, Iran's official IRNA news agency reported.
The summons came two days after British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly urged Iranian authorities to respect the right to peaceful assembly, to exercise restraint, and to release unfairly detained protesters.
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