BEIRUT (AP) — Robina Aminian’s family believes the college student was killed by a bullet fired by Iranian security forces straight into the back of her head, and said her mother later searched for her body in a pile of corpses. Aminian’s death, the family said, came amid nationwide protests challenging the Islamic Republic’s theocracy, but the search for her remains became its own ordeal.
Family members abroad said Aminian was a Kurdish woman studying fashion in Tehran. More than a week after she was killed, relatives said they still had not held a funeral, describing the difficulty of grieving when access to bodies and communications inside Iran are constrained.
The details about what happened to Aminian are scant, AP reported. Communications in Iran are limited, and AP said it was unable to independently confirm the family’s account, the wounds to Aminian’s body or to verify its location. The Iranian mission to the United Nations in New York declined to comment, according to the report.
An Oslo-based human rights organization, Iran Human Rights, released a report about the killing, citing witness testimony. The group said it verified there was a shooting on the night of Jan. 8 around the campus of the Shariati Technical and Vocational College for Girls.
Everything Aminian’s relatives abroad knew about her death came from a brief phone call her mother was able to make on Jan. 10 to relatives in Oslo. Friends of Aminian told her mother, Amina Norei, that on Jan. 8 they were walking away from campus in Tehran after dark when they saw a protest and joined in; they said Aminian was gunned down by security forces, and that a bullet fired by security forces struck her in the back of her head.
Videos shared on social media—verified by AP—as well as statements by rights groups, doctors and survivors described Iranian agents using rifles and shotguns to disperse protesters across the country. AP also reported that Iranian authorities increasingly refer to demonstrators as “terrorists,” and that while authorities allege some demonstrators were armed, there were no allegations that anyone was armed in Aminian’s vicinity at the time of her death. Aminian’s relatives said she was not an activist or involved in politics.
AP reported that Norei was in Kermanshah, a western city in Iran’s Kurdish region, nearly 460 kilometers (230 miles) from Tehran, when she learned about her daughter’s death. She rushed to Tehran in the middle of the night, she told family, and Norei recalled beginning to unzip body bags after body bags in search of her daughter.
Nezar Minoei, Aminian’s uncle, said from Oslo, “She wanted a bright future for herself,” and added, “But unfortunately, the future has been stolen from her.” After Norei found Aminian’s body, Minoei said the family raced to leave, fearing authorities might demand payment to release the corpse.
Minoei said Norei “actually stole the body.” According to family accounts, Norei and relatives drove out of town and dug a pit on the side of the road, placed the body inside and drove away, and Aminian was still believed to be buried there in an unmarked grave. Relatives said they had not heard from Norei or other relatives in Iran since Sunday.
Amnesty International said many other Iranian families were searching overflowing morgues for loved ones, with bodies piled up in trucks, freight containers and warehouses. In a statement to AP, the New York City-based Center for Human Rights in Iran said it has received multiple accounts of intelligence forces demanding money from families in exchange for the return of protesters’ bodies, describing the levies as “a well-known, standard practice” in Iran to scare families into not publicly mourning their dead.
The center also said other families told it they were forced to sign papers falsely declaring that their dead relatives were members of the security forces in order to retrieve the bodies. Iranian state television recently aired a statement saying mortuary and burial services were free, after repeated allegations of the practice.
The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency said at least 3,090 people have been killed, while Iran’s government had not offered any overall casualties figures, AP reported. Julia Frankel reported from Jerusalem.