Iran: A man is killed as anti-government protesters celebrate the World Cup defeat

CNN
–

A man was reportedly killed by security forces in northern Iran during public celebrations by anti-government protesters after The national football team defeat by the United States on Tuesday.

The Norway-based Iranian Human Rights Organization said that Mehran Samak was shot in the head by security personnel when he was outside. celebration In Bandar Anzali on Tuesday night. The IHR said it had confirmed the information through “several independent sources”.

“His name was #Mahran Sammak. He was shot in the head by state forces when he went out to celebrate the Islamic Republic’s loss in the 2022 World Cup in Bandar Anzali last night like many across the country. He was 27 years old,” the Iranian Human Rights Organization said on Wednesday. just a year.”

Human Rights Watch and other activist groups initially reported that authorities were holding Samak’s body and refusing to hand it over to his family. The international human rights organization shared a video showing people gathered in front of the state’s forensic medical authority, demanding that the body be returned to his family.

Later on Wednesday, Iran Wire, the pro-reform news channel, released a video showing the crowds at Samak’s funeral in Bandar Anzali chanting “Death to the dictator.”

Iranian police have denied that Samak was killed by the authorities, and announced the arrest of a number of suspects, Iran’s pro-state Tasmin news agency reported Thursday.

“After the football match between our national team and the United States, a number of hooligans gathered in the Cheraq Bargh neighborhood of Anzali and the body of a man, about 30 years old, was discovered. Based on the existing evidence, Bandar Anzali police chief Colonel Jaafar Javanmardi said, according to Tasnim. Shot him with a hunting rifle.

Javanmardi denied opposition media reports that Samak had been shot in the head by the authorities, saying, “At first, the counter-revolutionary and opposition media reported it because this young man was shot in the head by the authorities and later died in hospital,” according to Tasneem.

Tasneem also published a picture of Samak with the article.

The Anzali district police chief also said that a number of suspects have been identified and arrested and the attempt to identify the assailant is continuing, according to Tasneem.

Samak was a close friend of Saeed Ezzatullah, a member of the Iran national football team, who had just returned to Iran after the team’s exit from the World Cup in Qatar. The footballer posted a tribute to his childhood friend on Instagram on Wednesday.

“I wish we could always stay the same age…. without worry, without hate, without jealousy, without fighting to bring each other down…. There is so much to say my childhood teammate, but unfortunately people are so drowned in ego and jealousy and so messy that it’s hard to even That you find people who listen to these words or they don’t exist at all…

“Surely after another bitter night last night and with the news of your passing, my heart burns even more.”

Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA) reported on Thursday that Iran’s public prosecutor, Mehdi Fallah Miri, said that the “suspicious” murder case of Samak was opened after his death “with a bullet from a cartridge.”

Miri added, according to ISNA, that “immediately after this suspicious incident occurred, a case was opened to deal with the case and the public prosecutor in Bandar Anzali is handling the case.”

Several videos Posted on social media On Tuesday evening people are seen in cities across Iran, including the capital, Tehran, celebrating inside their homes and apartment buildings after the United States beat Iran 1-0 in the World Cup.

“I am happy, this government is losing to the people,” a witness to the celebrations in a city in the Kurdish region told CNN on Wednesday. CNN did not name the witness for security reasons.

Activist outlet 1500tasvir also posted videos showing security forces on Tuesday evening, opening fire on people in Behbahan and beating a woman in Qazvin, both cities south of Bandar Anzali where Samak is said to have been shot.

CNN cannot independently confirm the information because the Iranian government does not allow foreign media into the country, and has not been transparent in its reporting on the protests and the victims of the protests.

Demonstrations rocked Iran for several months, prompting a deadly crackdown by the authorities.

The nationwide uprising was ignited for the first time before Mohsa Amini’s death, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman who died in mid-September after being detained by the country’s morality police. Since then, protesters across Iran have coalesced over a range of grievances with the regime.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, has said the country is going through a “full-blown human rights crisis” as the authorities crack down on protests.