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16-year-old Nika Shakarami was found dead in a mortuary by her parents ten days after she participated in the protests in the Iranian capital Tehran.
The day before she was to be buried, Iranian authorities stole her body and buried her in a village a few miles away, BBC Persian reports.
– They didn’t let us see her body, only her face for a few seconds, says a relative of the girl.
During one of the protests in Tehran on September 20, 16-year-old Nika Shakarami disappeared. Ten days later, the family learned that she was dead.
In her last message to a friend, Mika said she was being chased by security forces.
Ten days after the protests, the 16-year-old’s family was able to identify her dead body at a mortuary.
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“Didn’t get to see the body”
– When we were going to identify her, we were not allowed to see her body, only her face for a few seconds, says her aunt Atash Shakarami to BBC Persian.
The family took the body to the father’s hometown Khorramabad on Sunday, the day she would have turned 17.
The family planned to bury her the following day but before that her body was stolen by Iranian authorities and buried in a village about 40 kilometers from her hometown, a source told BBC Persian.
Steal bodies for blackmail
The authorities have previously taken protesters’ bodies to negotiate with the families for their silence, according to the BBC.
Nika’s family reportedly agreed not to hold a funeral under duress by the authorities but still they stole her body.
After the events, hundreds of protesters gathered at the cemetery in Khorramabad.
