Iranian authorities have forced the family of a 17-year-old boy killed by security forces during anti-government protests in Ûrmiye, to say he died of an infection caused by a dog bite, the Kurdistan Human Rights Network (KHRN) reported.

The Kurdish human rights organization has released a video in which Parvin Shafaqdoost, the mother of 17-year-old Nima (Aslan) Shafaqdoost, who was killed on 21September during a protest in the Islamabad neighbourhood of Ûrmiye, recounts the incident.

According to the video, five days after the violent death of Jina Mahsa Amini, killed while in the custody of the moral police  in Tehran, Nima was shot twice in both legs during protests in Ûrmiye. When the family took him to a nearby hospital, they found security forces besieging the medical facility. The family chose to take him to a doctor and then have him treated at home by that doctor for 12 days.

Nima was an apprentice in a restaurant in Ûrmiye and had just turned 17 nine days before being shot. He had only attended elementary school. On 4 October, the family realized that if Nima survived, he would need urgent professional care at a hospital. He was then taken to a clinic, but the infection had spread throughout his body and he died shortly thereafter.

KHRN and other human rights organizations reported at the time that Nima was killed by security forces during the protests. However, authorities said his death had nothing to do with the protests. The family was forced to confirm information released by the Ûrmiye police on a deadly infection after a dog bite, on the state TV channel.

Now Nima's mother had broken her silence and revealed what really happened to her son. “It was 4 October and Nima's condition was deteriorating. We put him in a vehicle and took him to the hospital, where he died half an hour later," Parvin Shafaqdoost said in the video released by KHRN, holding a photo of her son. "They didn't give us the body and said they had to take him to the pathologist."

Two days later, the body was handed over to the family and buried. The family had previously been threatened by the secret service in a late-night phone call. "You shouldn't hold a ceremony for this young man, and if you do, we will come and take your other young men and do to them what we did to Nima," they reportedly said.

"Then four to five armed people came to our house and threatened us, warning us to not give interviews and to say that Nima was bitten by a dog," said Parvin Shafaqdoost. In fact, her son died as a result of his gunshot wounds. "I swear by the soul of my killed son that I'm telling the truth," said the mother at the end of the video.