A woman who lost her teenage son when he was shot by Iranian security services and whose husband then died of a broken heart has said she has nothing to lose after revealing officials lied in claiming the boy was killed by a dog.

Colonel Hassan Sheikhnejad, the police chief in Urmia, the largest city in West Azerbaijan Province, located in north-western Iran and borders Turkey, claimed that Nima Shafighdoust, 16, who was fatally wounded by direct gunfire from government forces during protests in Urmia, was in fact bitten by a dog.

He said that the teenager died due to an infection after he was released to his family.

But the boy’s mother Parveen Shafighdoust has told the Kurdistan Human Rights Network that her son was really killed by government security forces and that her husband died of a broken heart over the loss of his son.

The mother said that the boy had not even been taking part in the protests, and had been heading to get his salary from his work when he was shot twice by security services.

His family had tried to take him to hospital, but large numbers of security agents were taking the details of everybody that turned up and, worried that he would be arrested, they had taken him back home.

He was treated for 12 days, including by a friendly doctor that agreed to help him at risk himself, but he died as a result of an infection from the bullet wounds.

In the end, his family had taken the boy to hospital, but 30 minutes later he was dead, and security officials were at their door warning them that the story needed to be that he died from a dog bite.

Only when they agreed was his lifeless corpse handed over to his family.

The stress of the loss of his son and the threats from the security service was blamed on the fact that a short while later, his dad died.

Parveen said after losing her husband and her son, she no longer cares about the threats and wants to speak out to reveal the truth.

The protests started over the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, from Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, was on a visit to Tehran when she was arrested by morality police accused of violating hijab rules on 13th September.

She was allegedly beaten while in custody and spent the following days in a coma in the hospital before succumbing in the ICU on 16th September.

The clinic where she was treated said in a now-deleted social media post that she had been admitted brain-dead.

Alleged medical scans of her skull leaked by hackers showed that she had suffered bone fractures, haemorrhages, and brain oedema.

Anti-regime media are claiming that Mahsa’s medical records showing her history of heart disease were faked by the Iranian government.