Rubina Aminian, a 23-year-old student, was shot dead during protests in Tehran. Photo / Iran Human Rights group
Rubina Aminian, a 23-year-old student in Tehran, joined street protests against the Iranian regime after a day of classes on the textiles programme at Shariati College.
If her social media profile is anything to go by, she did so full of optimism and joy.
Videos show a young Kurdish woman in love with life: trying on jewellery and lipstick, blowing kisses to the camera.
After joining the crowds straight from college last Thursday local time, she never made it home. By the weekend, her family was forced to bury her beside a deserted road.
According to Iran Human Rights, she was shot at close range in the back of the head.
When her parents travelled from their home in Kermanshah to Tehran to identify her body, they saw many other young people killed in similar ways, the group said.
As United States President Donald Trump continues to threaten military action if the regime kills protesters, evidence is mounting – despite an internet blackout – that it has been doing exactly that for days, with increasing determination and lethality since Thursday.
This weekend, IranWire reported accounts from doctors and activists suggesting a hardening of policy by the regime in the middle of last week, marked by protesters being shot in the head and neck on Thursday and Friday nights.
The report also cited an increase in accounts of security forces firing down at protesters from rooftops.
Following a protest in the Qala Hassan Khan area of Tehran on Thursday, a single surgeon treated six patients shot in the head. None survived.
Graphic footage circulated on social media on Sunday local time showed a family member holding the crushed metal fragments of a bullet extracted from the head of a loved one.
Medics have described hospitals as overwhelmed with dead and wounded patients, and an eye hospital forced into “crisis mode” because of the number of people who had lost one or both eyes.
Security forces are said to be firing pellets as well as live ammunition.
Footage emerged showing dozens of body bags dumped on the roads outside the coroner’s office in Tehran.
People were forced to identify their relatives outside, while others crowded around government screens showing the bloodied faces of those killed.
The Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR) said that unverified reports suggest more than 2000 people may have been killed.
It denounced the regime’s sweeping crackdown as a “mass killing” and a “major international crime against the people of Iran”.
At the same time, the regime’s language has hardened, shifting its description of demonstrators from “rioters” to “terrorists”.
The country’s Attorney-General has described the protests as an “offence against God”, which carries the death penalty in Iran.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think-tank, the regime is now treating the protests increasingly as a military problem rather than a law enforcement issue.
This followed a statement issued on Saturday by the Artesh, Iran’s conventional Army, vowing to protect national interests, strategic infrastructure and public property.
Sporadic reporting from inside Iran suggests the intensity of repression in small towns and cities has been at least as severe – if not more so – than in major urban centres such as Tehran.
The regime does not appear to be sparing young people.
After one shooting at a demonstration in Najafabad, parents rushed to a nearby hospital to find the bodies of their children, according to a medical source.
“They took their children and buried them in the same clothes,” the source said.
“They said they were martyrs and did not need a bath or shroud.”
Protesters reportedly took control of some towns until a heavy military presence stifled demonstrations.
According to BBC Persian, the Army sent heavy reinforcements into the town of Lushan, posting sentries on every street and alleyway, making movement impossible and inspecting all passers-by.
The same situation was reported in Chalus, which had seen large protests but has been under martial law since Saturday local time with a 6pm curfew. “Security forces with machine guns have been stationed in all the streets,” the report said.
Despite evidence of a sharp escalation in violence towards protesters, huge crowds still turned out on Saturday night.
Reza Pahlavi, Iran’s crown prince in exile, urged Iranians to continue, suggesting the regime was losing both the manpower and the will to sustain the crackdown.
“For the third consecutive night, you have severely weakened Khamenei’s repressive apparatus and his regime,” he said.
“Reliable reports indicate the Islamic Republic is facing a severe shortage of mercenaries to confront the millions in the streets, and that many armed and security forces have abandoned their posts or disobeyed orders.”
He called for another night of protests, but urged demonstrators to remain in large groups.
“Do not separate from one another or from the crowds; and do not take side streets that could endanger your lives.”
Evidence suggests the repression continues even after death.
When Rubina Aminian’s parents reached Tehran, they were initially told they would not be permitted to take their daughter’s body home, according to Iran Human Rights.
They eventually persuaded authorities to release her body, but on returning to the far west of the country found their house surrounded by intelligence agents.
When they approached mosques to request a burial ceremony, they were told such services had been forbidden.
Rubina was eventually buried beside a road between Kermanshah and Kamyaran.
A source close to the family described her as “a young woman full of joy for life and passionate about fashion and clothing design, whose dreams were buried by the violent repression of the Islamic Republic”.
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