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Authorities in Iran are cracking down on families of those killed in recent protests as they try to carry out an important ritual, marking the 40th and final day of mourning. Ceremonies were to take place across the country for the more than 6,000 people who were killed during the uprising, according to rights groups. But the authoritarian regime is discouraging and intimidating families from doing so. NPR's international affairs correspondent Jackie Northam has this report.
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JACKIE NORTHAM, BYLINE: In the town of Kahrizak on the outskirts of Tehran, a ceremony to honor the dead. In a ritual deeply embedded in Iranian culture, families and friends gather to mark 40 days after they were killed in widespread protests that gripped Iran. In this widely distributed social media post, women, mostly in abayas and dark head scarves, sway, wail and clap their hands to their chest while the music plays, anguish written across their faces.
UNIDENTIFIED HAIRDRESSER: (Through interpreter) All of this dancing and singing at the graves comes from anger and a will to take revenge.
NORTHAM: That's according to this 35-year-old Iranian hairdresser from Bandar Abbas in southern Iran. Like others interviewed for this report, she asks that we distort her voice and not use her name out of fear of retaliation by Iran's authoritarian regime. The hairdresser says families who are able to openly mark the final day of mourning are relatively lucky. They found the body and were able to have some closure by holding the burial ritual. The hairdresser says the authorities made things very difficult at several ceremonies to honor her friends.
UNIDENTIFIED HAIRDRESSER: (Through interpreter) They didn't let us film or see the dead bodies of our friends to say goodbye to them. They threatened anyone who had a phone in their hands to film. They kept shouting and pressuring us and the family to be quick. We could not grieve at all.
NORTHAM: The authorities in Iran are increasingly intolerant of anything to do with honoring people killed during the protests, even regular burials, says a day worker from Gilan Province, along the Caspian Sea. He said his family was forced by the Basiji paramilitaries to bury his brother-in-law at night.
UNIDENTIFIED DAY WORKER: (Through interpreter) The Basijis said we had to bury him after dark. The family resisted, cried and shouted. We could not even take flowers to his grave. My friends brought about 20 bouquets. The next day, they were gone. Basijis called the family on the phone and threatened again, saying, hadn't we told you, you are not allowed to take flowers.
NORTHAM: Now the regime is tightening things further, says the hairdresser.
UNIDENTIFIED HAIRDRESSER: (Through interpreter) From what we've heard, the security forces are warning that nobody is allowed to have a ceremony - definitely not at the graveyard, only at their homes and quietly.
NORTHAM: Security forces backed up their threats with violence earlier this week. Social media posts showed people fleeing amid the sound of gunfire at a 40th-day commemoration in Abdanan in western Iran.
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UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Shouting in non-English language).
NORTHAM: The regime is doing its best to force people not to talk about the dead at all, as if the protest didn't happen, says a caterer in Tehran. But she says Iranian people will continue to honor those killed by the authoritarian regime.
UNIDENTIFIED CATERER: (Through interpreter) We are not just simply going to go back to our old routines like nothing happened. We are constantly reading, writing and sharing the stories of the ones who went out to protest and died. We are all mourning for anyone who was killed or arrested.
NORTHAM: And coming down too hard on mourners could backfire. Already, there have been protests forming at some of the 40th-day ceremonies.
Jackie Northam, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF JAUBI'S "REFLECTIONS OF GOD") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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