Assassination Attempt on Nahid Shirpich, Mother of Pouya Bakhtiari, in Prison

Mona Bakhtiari, sister of Pouya Bakhtiari, one of the victims of the November 2019 protests, says there has been an assassination attempt on her mother, Nahid Shirpich, in Zanjan prison. On Wednesday, July 6, she stated in a video on Instagram: "I just returned from visiting my mother and learned that there was an assassination attempt on her life and that she was assaulted by someone." This activist sister expressed that her father, Manouchehr Bakhtiari, is also in danger in prison due to illness and the prison authorities preventing necessary surgery, saying: "We are ready to die because this life is much worse than death." Mona Bakhtiari further mentioned that before Nowruz 1403, agents from the Ministry of Intelligence visited her mother and promised her a ten-day leave "on a multi-billion bail." However, after much "running around and following up," the Ministry of Intelligence summoned her two months ago and asked her to confess on camera that Pouya Bakhtiari was a "rioter" who had "set fire to a kiosk and intended to shoot at the agents" during the 2019 protests. She reported that a month later, she was informed that Nahid Shirpich's leave was canceled because Saba and Mehrdad Bakhtiari "informed about the death of their cousin." The uncle and aunt of Pouya Bakhtiari announced a few days after the death of former President Ebrahim Raisi that Behrouz Ghadimi, a flight engineer and one of the victims of Raisi's helicopter crash, is their cousin. This is not the first time Nahid Shirpich has been attacked in prison. Mona Bakhtiari had previously stated that her mother was "beaten by self-appointed or hired prisoners" just three weeks after entering the general ward of Zanjan prison, and prison officials did not intervene to prevent the assault on this grieving mother. After the killing of her son Pouya Bakhtiari by the security forces during the November 2019 protests, Nahid Shirpich faced severe pressure from security agencies and was repeatedly summoned and arrested. During a widespread arrest of families of the killed protesters in July last year, Nahid Shirpich was arrested again, and despite other grieving families being gradually released, the first branch of the Revolutionary Court of Karaj sentenced her to five years in prison. Subsequently, on November 9, 1401, the security forces transferred Ms. Shirpich from Kachoui prison in Karaj to Zanjan central prison just before the third anniversary of her son's death, and this grieving mother has now been held in a state of "exile" in this prison for months.