The suspicious death of a 16-year-old girl in Tehran is fueling anger among demonstrators

Now a top focus is on the beyond. Masa Mini has become a household name across the world. The Iranian woman became the face of dissent against a crackdown on women's rights. At a time when all eyes are on Tehran, one would expect and say that the morality police will be in line. But that's not the case. Year-old Nikashakarami died just hours after attending a protest. According to her mother, she was last seen standing on a dumpster and burning her headscarf. In the capital, hundreds of others were standing along with her, chanting slogans. That was 20 September.

 She soon left the protest side after being chased by the police. This latest video has put the police's version under the lens. Just last week, state TV showed blurry footage of a girl walking down an alley and entering a building. Officials claimed that the girl was Nika and that she was thrown from the under-construction building. Her body was found in a mob ten days later by her family after she went missing. Since the start, the victim's mother has denied all of these allegations and blamed the authorities for killing Shakarami. The family even denied that the video released by the police is not of their daughter.

The mother has also alleged that two hopper family members were forced into making false statements. Now, Nika is not the only young female protester to have been killed during the unrest. Iranian Society for Protecting the Rights of Child reported that a total of 28 children have been killed since the protests erupted. The latest incident has revived the growing anger against Iranian authorities. Ayatollah Alikaini's administration has been accused of imposing restrictions on women from public movement to dress code. There are laws regulating every aspect of a woman's life. Current protests are being seen as a hopeful start for a change. Demonstrations are extremely uncommon in the country, let alone ones led by women. Now for more on this, we are being joined by Emiri from Oslo. He's the director of An Embryo Named Iran. Human Rights. Welcome to the broadcast.

Now, my first question to you is at a time when all eyes are on Iran, one would expect that the morality police will be more cautious with its response. But reports show that another woman has fallen victim to their crackdown. Are you seeing any signs of the situation getting better for the Iranian women?

Well, you see that the protest that started or was triggered by the murder of Masta Amini, as you said in the report by the morality police, they have now become a nationwide protest against the Islamic Republic of Iran. So people have had enough of 43 years of oppression by highly incompetent and corrupt authorities. So what we see now on the streets is actually they want to have a fundamental change where all human beings have their basic human rights. So it started with protecting women's rights and protesting against the suppression of women now is a protest that wants fundamental change. Of the young girl that you see beaten further, at least 200, more than 200 people have lasted three weeks during the process, and as you said, more than 20 of them are children.

Unfortunately what we have seen both before and also during these protests is that Iranian authorities are willing to go very far to hold onto power. The last time we had nationwide protests was in November 2019 they shut down the internet and killed, according to some reports, up to 1500 people. And at that time the protests stopped. But this time they have been using the same methods. They shoot at people, they beat them. As you say, some of them are children, young girls who just go out and they just take off their headscarves and chant that we want freedom and they are beaten to death. So we are very concerned that if the international community doesn't show a strong reaction to the Iranian authorities, they might go very far in killing these innocent protesters who are just calling for their fundamental rights and the human casualties will increase significantly.

Well, the change must come from inside. The change will come from the Iranian people like any major change in any dictatorship. The drivers of this change are these young girls and boys and men and women inside the country. But what the international community can do is force Iran to limit human casualties. So I think that the international community must send a united warning to the Iranian authorities and they must also establish mechanisms at the UN to hold those responsible for these atrocities, for shooting people responsible. And this can be done if the international community stands together, supports the Iranian people's demands for fundamental human rights, and establish mechanisms to hold Iranian leaders accountable.