Slain Iranian protester’s gravestone damaged as family faces pressure to say he was Basij


Iranian security forces have vandalized the gravestone of slain protester Sajad Valamanesh and continued pressuring his family to portray him as a Basij member, a source familiar with the matter told Iran International.
The source said intelligence and IRGC officials had repeatedly threatened the family over the wording on the headstone, warning they would destroy it if it was not changed. “Yesterday, several people went and covered the inscriptions with glue and plaster,” the source said, adding that the family had earlier been forced into coerced confessions and is now being pressured to say Valamanesh was a Basij member killed by “rioters.”
Valamanesh, from Lordegan in Chaharmahal and Bakhtiari province, was shot dead by security forces during protests on January 1.