The Tragic Killing of a Young Girl for Tearing a Photo
Parmis Hamnava, a 14-year-old student in the third grade of middle school at Parvin Etesami School in Iranshahr, a city in southeastern Iran, was an innocent young girl whose life was tragically cut short by the Iranian regime.
On Tuesday, October 25, 2022, security forces stormed Parmis’s school, searching through each student’s books. Parmis had torn out a picture of Khomeini, the mullah’s former supreme leader, from her textbook and discarded it—a small, symbolic act. But for this “offense,” she was brutally beaten in front of her classmates. The assault was so severe that she began bleeding from her nose and was then taken to Iranshahr Hospital.
The following day, on Wednesday, October 26, 2022, Parmis passed away. Her body was taken to Zahedan, the capital of Sistan and Baluchestan Province, for burial.
After her death, security forces threatened Parmis’s family, teachers, and classmates, demanding that no one speak of her case. Under this condition, her body was eventually released to her family. They even collected all photos of Parmis from the school to erase traces of her presence and story.
Six days later, on November 1, 2022, local state television attempted to deny Parmis’s death. To mislead the public, they aired an interview with a different student, a girl named Parmis Bameri, claiming she was the real Parmis Hamnava, alive and well. This was an attempt to frame the news of Parmis’s death as “anti-regime propaganda.” However, the deception was poorly crafted—Parmis Hamnava had attended the afternoon session, while Parmis Bameri was a morning student.
Parmis’s untimely death is one among many tragedies during the protests in Iran, where young lives are claimed by a regime intolerant of even the smallest defiance. She was a young girl who, like so many others, wanted to live in a society that respected her desire for freedom, but her life was stolen simply for an act of innocence and courage.
