Man Killed By Iran Security For Honking Car Horn In Support Or Iranian Protests: Report

Iranian security forces killed a 31-year-old man who showed his support for anti-government protesters in the western province of Kurdistan last month, according to reports.

Yahya Rahimi was driving to work in Kurdistan's capital of Sanandaj on Oct. 8 when two armed men with large sticks attacked his car, the U.S. government-funded Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

Gunshots were heard in supposed footage of the incident shared by Hengaw, a Kurdish human rights organization based in Norway.

A scene in the clip showed Rahimi, who was initially identified as Dariush Alizadeh, lifeless in the driver's seat.

"Anti-revolutionary forces" had shot him to death, Ali Azadi, Kurdistan's head of police, alleged.

However, Rahimi's family claimed government forces were responsible for the killing.

Plainclothes security agents reportedly targeted Rahimi because he honked his car horn in solidarity with anti-government protests in Sanandaj.

Kurdistan has become the epicenter of demonstrations that erupted across Iran over the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.

Amini died in custody in September after Iran's Guidance Patrol, also known as the morality police, detained her for wearing an "improper hijab."

Iranian authorities attributed the death to a heart attack from natural causes, but reports suggested that Amini died as a result of alleged torture and ill-treatment, according to the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Rahimi was among the at least 300 people killed in the government's crackdown on the protests.

Police officers allegedly visited Rahimi's family and offered condolences following his death.

However, Rahimi's father, Ahmad Rahimi, claimed authorities also pressured him to declare his deceased son a member of the Basij, a paramilitary force under the Iranian Armed Forces' Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, to put the blame for his death on protesters.

"When we received the body, the authorities said, 'We will register him as a martyr, you will receive [benefits], and we will give you blood money.' I told them I don't want such a thing," Ahmad said.

Rahimi's mother urged protesters to "continue the uprising" instead of offering their condolences to her son, according to Dr. Nina Ansary, an Iranian-American historian and human rights advocate.