Iran charges journalists following BBC report on protester’s death

Iranian Journalists and Activists Face Charges After BBC Report on Teen Protester’s Death

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

The judiciary-run Mizan news agency has denounced the BBC Eye investigation into Nika Shakarami’s death in 2022 as “fake, incorrect, and full of mistakes.” While the agency did not disclose the identities of those summoned for allegedly “disrupting the psychological security of society,” two Iranian journalists who commented on the report online revealed that prosecutors had opened cases against them.

One of the journalists, Mohammad Parsi, took to Twitter to announce that the Tehran Prosecutor’s Office had summoned him for publishing an “article about Nika Shakarami and the details of her murder.” The second journalist, Marzieh Mahmoodi, stated that the charges against her were unclear.

Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi dismissed the findings of the BBC’s investigation as a conspiracy orchestrated by Iran’s enemies. He claimed that the report was intended to divert attention from ongoing pro-Palestinian protests in the US and Iran’s recent missile and drone attack on Israel.

Nika Shakarami became a prominent figure in the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement that rocked the Islamic Republic two years ago. The movement was sparked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman detained by morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly.

Nika gained attention after she was filmed at a protest in Tehran setting fire to her headscarf and chanting “death to the dictator,” referring to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. She went missing after telling a friend that she was being pursued by security forces and was later found dead with injuries to her head.

Her family rejected officials’ claims that she had committed suicide by jumping off a building. The BBC Eye investigation, based on a leaked internal document from the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC), detailed the events leading to Nika’s death.

According to the document, Nika was detained by a paramilitary group deployed by the IRGC to monitor protests in Tehran. The document outlined how the men in the group molested her, beat her to death with batons, and dumped her body on a street.

The BBC report confirmed that while there are counterfeit Iranian official documents in circulation, their extensive investigations indicated that the documents they obtained accurately depicted Nika’s final moments. The IRGC and the Iranian government were contacted for comment before the report’s publication but did not respond.

The charges against journalists and activists in Iran highlight the challenges faced by those seeking to expose human rights abuses and hold authorities accountable. The case of Nika Shakarami serves as a stark reminder of the dangers faced by individuals who speak out against injustice in repressive regimes.