Amid unprecedented protests in Iran, hundreds gathered Friday for the funeral of 9-year-old Kian Pirfalak after he was allegedly killed by state security forces days before, The Washington Post reported.
Iranian authorities have denied responsibility for Pirfalak's death, an all-too-similar response reminiscent of Mahsa Amini's case, which instigated the first round of nationwide protests.
On Sept. 16, Amini, 22, died in a Tehran, Iran, hospital under suspicious circumstances. The religious morality police of Iran's government arrested Amini for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards.
"They shouldn't say it was terrorists. They're lying," Pirfalak's mother, Zeinab Molairad, told the crowd regarding her boy's death, which the state has attributed to a rogue motorcycle gunman who killed six others. "The plainclothes forces themselves shot my child."
Molairad explained her account of how the situation transpired, recalling Pirfalak asking his dad to "trust the police and go back, they want what's good for us" before plainclothes officers "riddled the car with bullets."
"I told the kids to get under the seats," she said. "If I got shot myself, it won't matter. My little one was underneath the dashboard. I don't know why [Kian] didn't go. He was chubby. He didn't go under the seat."
Chanting "Death to Khamenei," in reference to current Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, protesters in the western city of Khomeyn set fire to the ancestral home of former leader Ruhollah Khomeini on Thursday night in retaliation.
The demonstrations have been mainly sparked by an online push to commemorate a previous round of demonstrations in 2019 that ended in a widespread government crackdown.
"This is the year of blood. Seyed Ali will be overthrown," protesters chanted in one video shared on social media.
The Human Rights Activists News Agency estimates that at least 326 people have been killed, including 56 children, since the demonstrations began in September.
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