Abu Dhabi CNN —
The mother of Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old protester who was found dead in Tehran last month, says her daughter was killed by Iranian security forces during a protest.
In interviews with Iranian newspaper Etemad and BBC Persian, and in a video message released by US-funded Radio Farda, Shahkarami’s mother, Nasrin Shahkarami, dismissed official statements that her daughter had fallen from a roof.
“It is clear that my daughter was at the protests and was killed there,” Nasrin Shahkarami said, according to the interview with Etemad, an independent Iranian newspaper.
Etemad removed the interview from its website on Tuesday.
The death of Nika Shahkarami comes amid ongoing nationwide protests against a regime accused of corruption and rooting out dissent with arbitrary arrests and even mass executions.
The protests were first sparked by the death of another young woman, Mahsa Amini, after she was arrested by morality police in September.
The Iranian government said Nika Shahkarami was found dead on September 21 after surveillance television footage showed her entering a building in Tehran, and authorities publicly concluded that she died after she had fallen from the roof of the building.
Mohammad Shahriari, the head of Tehran provincial law enforcement, said Shahkarami’s injuries were consistent with a fall, citing an autopsy that revealed multiple fractures in the pelvis, head, upper and lower limbs, hands and feet, pro-government Tasnim reported .
He added that “an investigation concluded that this incident was not linked to the protests. No bullet holes were found on the body and the marks on the body show that the person was killed by a fall.”
According to Tasnim, eight workers were arrested at the building they allegedly entered.
But Nasrin Shahkarami refutes these official accounts. She said in the Radio Farda video her daughter’s body only had injuries to the head and the rest of the body was in good condition.
She also denied that the girl shown in the CCTV video entering the building is her daughter.
“Nobody can prove that this is Nika. A shadow was caught on camera, the girl is wearing a mask and it is not clear what is in these pictures. I don’t think that’s Nika,” Shahkarami told Etemad.
Nika Shahkarami went missing after attending a protest in Tehran, according to her mother, who has confirmed her daughter can be seen in social media footage of a protest.
“I saw this video and the young girl in the video is Nika,” Nasrin Shahkarami told Etemad.
Nine days after her disappearance, police showed Shahkarami’s photos of her daughter’s body at the Kahrizak morgue, she said, according to Radio Farda.
Although other family members have been quoted by state-aligned media as supporting the idea that Nika Shahkarami died from a fall, her mother claims these statements were “coerced” by authorities.
On Wednesday, Iranian state media aired a report in which Atash Shakarami, Nika Shahkarami’s aunt, told a reporter that the girl died after falling from an apartment building, supporting the government’s account of the teenager’s death.
In the report by Iranian state broadcaster IRIB, Atash Shahkarami said her niece was found in the backyard of the building after falling. The aunt said she was shown photos of where Nika fell and wanted to see where it happened.
Nika’s uncle Mohsen Shahkarami can also be seen in the IRIB report condemning protesters and saying: “We do not support actions that damage public property.”
According to BBC Persian and Radio Farda, Nasrin Shahkarami said that Iranian security forces arrested the aunt and uncle and forced them to give a false statement.
Shahkarami told BBC Persian that her brother was threatened not to comment or his wife and 4-year-old son would be arrested.
“They put her under intense pressure to make a false confession and broadcast it on TV. The[security forces]are doing everything they can to exonerate themselves,” Shahkarami said in a video provided to Radio Farda.
The UN human rights office told CNN on Thursday it had “received reports that the authorities forced Nika Shakarami’s family to give a television interview that aired on October 5 and said they were after a died falling from a building”.
“We call for an end to the harassment and threats against the victims’ families and those who are demanding accountability,” a spokesman for the UN Human Rights Office said in a statement.
CNN has reached out to family members for comment.