An Iranian woman has died in the Iranian city of Kerman in the aftermath of a fistfight between pilgrim tourists and a group of area residents. The so-called tourists, who had arrived in buses with license plates from other parts of Iran on April 23rd, attacked and abused the local women as they strolled in Shazdeh Mahan Garden and Park, claiming the women were violating mandatory hijab laws.
Video of the security forces’ violent attack and crackdown on the women for not wearing hijabs on Sunday, crying and screaming as people fight and others try to attend to someone who appears to have collapsed on the ground. In the aftermath of the fight, 59-year-old Kolsoom Oftadehpour died. Local news outlets close to the Khomeinist regime claimed that she suffered cardiac arrest. However, people who shared the footage say that, in fact, she was beaten. Khomeinist regime’s official Fars news agency confirmed the woman’s death and described it as a scuffle between two groups of people, with no mention of the regime forces’ direct involvement.
The governor of Kerman, who called it a “mass conflict”, claimed that the whole thing was sparked by personal squabbles without even mentioning the protest against hijab rules.
یک عضو خانواده کلثوم افتاده‌پور، زن کشته شده در کرمان به سایت رویداد۲۴ گفت: «زائران قاسم سلیمانی الفاظ بی‌شرمانه‌ای خطاب به دختران خانواده گفتند»
او افزود: «معلوم نیست چه کسی یک ضربه‌ای به مادر ما زد که روی زمین افتاد. اجازه ندادند کسی جسد را ببیند، خودشان کفن کردند.» pic.twitter.com/NtVlhBnQTH
— ايران اينترنشنال (@IranIntl) April 27, 2023
Kolsoom Oftadehpour relatives reported that the group that harassed and abused them are known as “Qassem Soleimani pilgrims”. They also announced that Kolsoom’s body was buried without the family’s knowledge or permission and that following these events, they continue to be abused and pressured at the hands of the regime. An elder member of the Oftadehpour family said: “Some people claimed that the conflict was due to ethnic issues, which is absolutely false. The reason for the fight was that a group of out-of-towners went on a tirade with our family to observe hijab laws. They screamed so much invective and profanity that I am ashamed to repeat what was said to our family.”
He added: “We have no idea which one of them hit our mother. Luckily a doctor was also present in the crowd who came to my family’s support, and when he announced that she was not breathing anymore, our family got angry and threw rocks at the bus. Otherwise, there was no physical altercation prior to this. ”
