LONDON: Iranian security forces claimed that a protester killed during clashes with authorities was a member of the Basij militia, pressuring his family into spreading the lie, according to a BBC investigation.
BBC Persian reported that security forces were collaborating with state media to spread disinformation that Milad Ostad-Hashem, 37, was loyal to the regime and had been shot in the back by protesters.
Ostad-Hashem’s family were put under pressure to back the state’s claims, with a source telling the BBC: “Security forces threatened to kill their (Ostad-Hashem’s parents) two other sons and bury Milad’s body secretly in a remote place if they did not cooperate.”
The source said the family complied so that Ostad-Hashem’s 8-year-old daughter, still not aware that her father is dead, would be able to visit his grave.
State media claimed that Ostad-Hashem had been a member of the Basij, which is controlled by the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp, with outlets publishing photos of him performing religious duties and labeling him a “martyr.”
On the day of his funeral, the cemetery he was buried in was filled with Basij-uniformed men so that state TV could broadcast the images for propaganda purposes
CCTV footage seen by BBC Persian showed Ostad-Hashem after he was shot by security forces in the back. Footage filmed by eyewitnesses suggests that he was shot through the lungs.
The Basij has been at the forefront of crackdowns on protests since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini at the hands of Iran’s morality police on Sept. 16.
In a final act of cruelty, the family of Ostad-Hashem, who “loved hip-hop music and hated this regime,” were forced to pay almost $700 to the state for the ammunition used to kill him, the source told the BBC.
Other incidents of protesters’ families being pressured into saying their children were in favor of the regime have also come to light.
The family of 17-year-old Abolfazl Adinezadeh refused to comply with state demands to suggest that he had been a Basij member and was killed by protesters on Oct. 8 in the city of Mashhad, the BBC reported.
Erfan Rezai, 21, who was filmed tearing down posters of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, was shot on Sept. 21 in the city of Amol.
His family were pressured into saying he had been an innocent bystander killed by “rioters,” BBC Persian reported.