A bullet to the head for 23-year-old Rubina Aminian. Police officers shot Aminian in the back of the head on orders from the regime, according to the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights (IHR).
Her family was looking for her. Rubina Aminian never returned home. Her body was found by her relatives in a morgue in Tehran, about 500 kilometers from their home in Kermanshah, in the west.
The 23-year-old Rubina was murdered in cold blood on the night of Thursday, January 8, in the streets of Iran. Finishing her course at the fashion school she attended, she wanted to join her voice with those of the hundreds of protesters who have flooded the streets of Tehran for two weeks.
Aminian’s family traveled all the way to Tehran to identify her body among “the bodies of hundreds of young people”.
Rubina Aminian was murdered with a single bullet to the head
The crackdown on protests in Iran has left hundreds dead, but few have so far been identified.
Her murder has caused worldwide shock and outrage, as the 23-year-old was shot in the head “at close range” during anti-government protests.
According to the Guardian, the 23-year-old student of Kurdish origin was studying fashion design at the “Shariati College” in Tehran.
Sources close to the 23-year-old’s family said the student was shot in the back of the head by repression forces.
The identification of the body and the prohibition of its burial
“The family was taken to a location near the college where they were confronted with the bodies of hundreds of youths killed during the protests.
Most of the victims were youths between the ages of 18 and 22 who had been shot at close range in the head and neck by government forces.
At first, the family was not allowed to identify Rubina’s body and later they were not allowed to take her body with them,” sources close to the Aminian family told Iran Human Rights.
“It wasn’t just my daughter. I saw hundreds of bodies with my own eyes,” said the mother of the 23-year-old student.
According to sources close to Rubina Aminian, the family had to search for the body alone among dozens of others in order to identify it.
Amidst this horrific scene, the family managed to locate the body and obtain permission to transport it to Kermanshah, Rubina’s birthplace.
After countless difficulties and deep pain they arrived home with the lifeless body of their child. The security forces had already surrounded the place and did not allow the funeral to take place.
According to family sources, the parents were forced to bury the 23-year-old’s body along the road between the Kurdish cities of Kermanshah and Kamyaran, in western Iran.
“She was thirsty for freedom, she was thirsty for women’s rights, her own rights”
Friends of Rubina Aminian describe the 23-year-old student as “a young woman full of joy for life and a passion for fashion design, whose dreams were buried by the Islamic Republic’s brutal crackdown.”
After the murder of Rubina Aminian, her name has become a hashtag on social media accompanied by messages of support for the fight.
Speaking to CNN, Rubina Aminian’s uncle, Nezar Minway, described her as “a strong girl, a courageous girl, she was not someone you could control and make decisions for her.
He fought for things he knew were right and he fought hard. She was thirsty for freedom, she was thirsty for women’s rights, her own rights.”
According to the estimates so far, . The death toll includes 490 protesters, while more than 10,600 people have been arrested.
