WANA (Nov 25) – On November 16, in Izeh, Khuzestan province of Iran, a family of four is moving towards their home by car. On their way home, they encounter rioting groups. While they pass by the police forces and move towards the gatherings, the police warn them not to go towards the riots and turn around. According to the mother’s account, the family’s nine-year-old son, Kian, tells his father to heed the police warning and turn around. The father turns towards the police forces. But unknown people shoot at the car. The mother and the youngest child of the family are not harmed. But the father is injured and Kian Pirfalak dies due to a bullet.

Kian Pirfalak’s family / Photo, Social Media

At the same time, there are stories and tweets on social networks that report hearing gunshots in Izeh while expressing their happiness about several police officers getting killed. According to reports, five people were martyred and ten people were injured in the terrorist attacks in Izeh. It is said that several people on motorcycles shot at the crowd and the police forces with Kalashnikovs and fled. Those who were happy about the killing of police officers on social networks, finding out that a child was also killed in these shootings, quickly changed their position and condemned the Islamic Republic for shooting at people and killing children.

 

Kian’s mother said at her son’s funeral that The plainclothes [government] forces shot at the car. she who is suffering from the tragic death of her son, confirms the words of the rioters and says that The plainclothes [government] forces who were next to the police guard shot at them and then took them to the hospital.

 

The day after the incident, IRIB broadcasts a message of condolence to Izeh on all its channels, and banners with Kian’s photo are installed throughout the city, and the perpetrators of this incident are condemned.

Kian Pirfalak’s banner in town / WANA / Social media

 

As with all the deaths that have occurred in the last two months, the atmosphere is strongly polarized and two completely different narratives are formed. Some people believe that this killing was done by the government, while others believe that the recent disturbances have prepared the situation for terrorists who have been waiting for such an opportunity for armed attacks for a long time. Undoubtedly, like all countries, in Iran, those who promote the use of violence in protest gatherings and promote the use of war weapons, must be held accountable for the deaths of citizens and police officers.

The death of a nine-year-old child was painful and tragic for all Iranians, both supporters, and opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Everyone was saddened by the death of an innocent child. But by reviewing the various narratives that are raised from that night, it seems that there are several points to consider.

 

The windows of the Pirfalak family’s car are tinted and in Iran, tinted windows are prohibited for non-government cars. On the same night in the city of Izeh, rioters were provoked to shoot at cars with tinted windows because they believed that these cars are for government agents. So it is most likely that the terrorists shot this family’s car believing that they are agents.

The car in which Kian was shot. Maybe because the windows of the car were tinted, the protesters thought that this car belonged to the security forces / WANA / Social Media

Kian’s mother says that The plainclothes forces shot at their car. In Iran, the term “plainclothes” is generally used to refer to Basij forces, who are not policemen and do not have police uniforms, but they have been trained in Basij bases and have come to the aid of the armed forces in various situations, including the war with Iraq. The important thing to know about these forces is that they may use batons or paintball guns, but they do not have the right to carry weapons. In Iran, the soldiers of the police force or the traffic officers do not carry weapons either. Considering this point, it is possible that since the terrorists shot at the car from the side of the police forces, Kian’s mother made this mistake and confused them with the Basij forces.

 

 

The next point is that on the same night, several police officers were also killed in these incidents. And this has happened in other cities as well. The tense atmosphere and the contents that are spread on social networks by rioters to attack police forces, also indicate that the possibility of a blind terrorist attack to kill police forces is very high.

More importantly, the police forces themselves warn the car to turn around and not go towards the gatherings. Why should they fire after this warning while the car is turning back?

Even if we take into account the low probability that the shooting was really from the police side, this error can be considered as the result of this tense atmosphere and the armed group of rioters, which forces the police to defend themselves and raises the possibility of fatal errors.

Three children were martyred in the terrorist attack on Shahcheragh holy shrine in Shiraz. / WANA / Social Media

But Kian was not the only child who was exploited to start a media war in the last month. And this is not the first time that protesters have tried to make people distrust the Islamic Republic by attributing a terrorist attack to the Iranian government. 15 people were killed in the terrorist attack on Shah Cheragh. Among the injured in this incident was a 5-year-old child who lost his father, mother, and brother during this attack. A photo of 5-year-old Artin was passed around among people. While ISIS took responsibility for this attack, some people tried to make the government responsible for this incident instead of blaming the enemy and violent terrorist groups based on the conspiracy theory that “the government is behind these murders”. MORE

 

these days, the image of another child who has lost her mother during the riots, crying on her mother’s grave, was also used to provoke people’s feelings.

Kian Pirfalak / WANA / Social Media

It is as if the violent and subversive groups, after years of continuous efforts to overthrow the Islamic Republic, had realized that the Iranian people have a special sensitivity towards girls and children and that harming these groups will cause the collective discomfort and anger of Iranians. As the story of Mehsa Amini aroused the anger of a large group of people among the supporters and opponents of the Islamic Republic.

Realizing this issue, the violent groups tried to exploit people’s feelings from the beginning of the protests and used the death of girls like Nika Shakrami and Asra Panahi and children like Kian to make people angrier to reach their political and financial goals.

Artin, an Iranian child who was injured in the Shah Cheragh shrine attack and whose family members (Father, mother and his brother) were killed in this attack. Iran November 2, 2022. Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader/WANA (West Asia News Agency)

The group who today express their sorrow over the death of teenagers and children in the streets of Iran and try to make a monster out of the government and the police by attributing these deaths to the Islamic Republic are the same people who in the last two months encouraged students and teenagers to participate in protests and shout deconstructive slogans, without considering the mental and physical consequences of involving these children in political issues. MORE

 

Many of these radical opponents, contrary to what they show, are happy that people were killed in these riots. Because for them, the death of people is a trump card for the political war with the Islamic Republic of Iran. It is as if, contrary to their human rights slogans, they do not spare any means, including human lives, to achieve their goals.

Kian Pirfalak / WANA / Social Media

Among the opponents of the Iranian regime, including extremist groups whose headquarters and bases are in Western countries, there are those who believe that when a child or a woman participates in religious ceremonies or gatherings and marches of the Islamic Republic, it means that they are a supporter of the Islamic Republic, so there is nothing wrong with killing them.

A few years ago, a bomb exploded in a religious place (Hosseinieh Shiraz) and several children and adults were killed. “Tondar” group, whose headquarters is in America and whose leader was recently arrested by Iran’s security service, takes responsibility for the attack. This group considered the death of children and women in that bombing to be okay because they were supporters of the Islamic Republic. Most of the radical opponents of the Islamic Republic of Iran have such radical thoughts, but because they know that Iranians are strongly opposed to this attitude and do not accept it, they are cautious in expressing it publicly.

 

The death of children is not an excuse for political games. The death of any human being, especially children, hurts people. Instead of abusing these feelings, the main goal should be to discover the truth, Arrest the perpetrators of these crimes, and prevent the repetition of these tragedies.

People attend a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s “morality police”, in Tehran, Iran September 21, 2022. WANA (West Asia News Agency) / Handout