The death of a teenage girl battered by Iran’s security forces because she had cut out a picture of the country’s former Supreme Leader from her schoolbook has sparked new outrage.

Parmis Hamnava was reportedly clubbed with a rifle butt after police raided her Parvin Etsami Middle School in Iranshahr, southern Iran, and searched her textbooks.

Reports said the third-year student was hit when guards found a picture of Iran’s former Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini (1900-1989) had been removed.

The picture is said to be compulsory in all official school books.

Classmates noticed that she started bleeding from her nose shortly before she collapsed on 25th October.

She died a day later after being transferred to a hospital in the city, with her family and friends reportedly threatened not to talk about her death.

Officials reportedly refused to hand over her body until the family promised her death would not be discussed in the media.

One insider was quoted in local media as saying that “security guards entered the school and searched the books of all the students, there was a torn picture of Khomeini in the book of the girl, and for this they beat her in front of the other students.”

Khomeini was the Supreme Leader of Iran from 1979 to 1989. He was succeeded by the current Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei.