KEY POINTS

  • Reports identified the schoolgirl as an 8th-grader named Parmis Hamnava
  • She was brutally beaten up by security forces and died later at the hospital
  • Security forces reportedly forced Hamnava's family not to speak to the media

A schoolgirl in Iran was reportedly beaten up by security forces after a photo of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini was found torn up in her textbook.

The 8th-grader was taken to the hospital but succumbed to her injuries, locals reports revealed Sunday.

The teenager was identified as Parmis Hamnava by the Halwash news agency and the Baloch Activists' Campaign, which monitors human rights violations in Balochistan, IranWire reported.

Security forces reportedly entered Hamnava's school in Iranshahr in the Sistan and Baluchestan Province and searched students' schoolbooks last week, according to the Jerusalem Post. They reportedly found a torn-up photo of Khomeini in Hamnava's textbook and then brutally beat her up in front of other students.

She died at the hospital following the incident.

While handing Hamnava's body over to be buried, security forces also reportedly made the girl's family and teachers promise not to speak to media outlets about her death.

The Tasnim News Agency, which has links to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, claimed such an incident did not take place in the Iranian education system. They also added that no students in Iranshahr were killed.

Protests in Iran have entered their seventh week. They were spurred by the September death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who was arrested by morality police for allegedly breaching Iran's strict rule requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab or headscarf.

Violent clashes between university students and security forces continued even after Hossein Salami, the commander-in-chief of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, warned people "not to come to the streets," Al Jazeera reported.

"Today is the last day of the riots," Salami said Saturday.

Footage shared on social media reportedly showed security forces firing tear gas at students of Tehran's Azad University as they defied the ultimatum.

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University students were informed that they were expelled or suspended from universities for taking part in the protests.

"If students are suspended, the university will be closed," chanted students at the Amirkabir University of Technology in Tehran, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Iran held its first hearings Sunday for "rioters," who were arrested on charges of assaulting security forces and setting fire to public property.

"Corruption on Earth" and "waging war against God" are also the charges that several people are currently facing.

Mahsa Amini's death has sparked nearly a month of protests in Iran
AFP