An Iranian police force has opened fire onto a crowd of mourners for Hadis Najafi, a female protester who had been shot by the police while protesting.
Today marks the 40th day since her death.
The officials have blocked all roads and shut down the cemetery where she was buried to stop people from visiting her.
She has gained popularity since her death and is considered one of the symbols of the on-going protests in Iran.
Videos emerged showing protesters walking along the highway to the cemetery in the town of Karaj, where she was buried, with the crowd shouting anti-government slogans.
Eyewitnesses have said that the security forces fired live rounds at them and that officers in civilian clothes attacked them with machetes.
Hadis Najafi was a 22-year-old social media personality mostly known for her Tik-Tok videos, one of which went viral worldwide and which she recorded on her phone where she walked into a demonstration in Karaj, in the west of Tehran, on the 26th of September.
Her family said that the police said that their daughter died of a heart attack, but the real cause of her death was a gunshot wound caused by the security forces firing on her an hour later, after she posted the video.
Last week, her sister posted on Instagram, inviting all of her friends and supporters, who supported her and the family, to a “chehelom” ceremony to mark the end of the 40-day mourning period, which is significant in Iranian culture.
It was reported that the Iranian Intelligence Ministry asked Hadis’s sister to remove her post from Instagram, as well as warning her family not to have any kind of ceremony and not to invite anyone over.
Many activists who came to Karaj said that the roads to Behesht Sakineh cemetery were blocked off by the authorities as they anticipated the protests. However, they were able to get through the roadblocks and into the cemetery to meet up.
The crowd that gathered at the cemetery was shouting anti-government chants like “death to the dictator,” referring to the Iranian Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and saying that each protester who was killed by the security forces had a thousand protesters behind them.
Several videos emerged showing security forces firing tear gas and a police box and police car engulfed in fire. Many protesters were also burning a brown “abah,” a piece of cloth worn by Shia clerics.
