A 17-year-old schoolboy has died in Iran’s second largest city, Mashhad, after reportedly being shot at close range by state forces during anti-government protests. Abolfazl Adinezadeh’s death certificate showed that he died of liver and kidney damage caused by birdshot, according to a BBC Persian report. A doctor was cited as estimating the distance from which the teenager was shot on 8 October as less than 1 metre. Protests have spread across Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody on 16 September. On Thursday, lawyers for Amini’s family rejected the findings of an official medical report that said the death of the 22-year-old, who had been detained over the way she was dressed, was not a result of beatings she received in custody. Authorities have not commented on the death of the teenager in Mashhad. Abolfazl’s father, in emotional video footage of the boy’s funeral posted on social media, said: “What crime had he committed, that you sprayed his stomach with 24 birdshot?” The 17-year-old reportedly joined the demonstration on 8 October to protest against the death of Amini, and against corruption. A day after the protest, Abolfazl’s parents were phoned to pick up their son from the police station. When they arrived, they found he was dead. Iranian security was present at the teenager’s funeral, and some mourners were asked to delete videos of the ceremony from their phones. His parents were put under pressure to claim that the boy was a member of the Basij, an Iranian militia, to imply he was killed by protesters. Ravina Shamdasani, a spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, on Tuesday described an “unabated violent response by security forces against protesters”, saying reports of arbitrary arrests and the killing and detention of children were “deeply worrying”. She said: “Some sources suggest that as many as 23 children have been killed and many others injured in at least seven provinces by live ammunition, metal pellets at close range, and fatal beatings. A number of schools have also been raided, and children arrested by security forces “On 11 October, the minister of education confirmed that an unspecified number of children had been sent to ‘psychological centres’ after they were arrested allegedly for participating in anti-state protests.” Meanwhile, Amini’s family on Thursday officially rejected the findings of an Iranian medical report that found her death was not caused by beating. Saleh Nikbakht, one of the lawyers acting for Amini’s parents, told Etemad newspaper: “The lawyers rejected the forensic doctor’s report in their statement of defence. Without clarifying the investigation process and the role of the person or persons involved in the arrest and transfer of Mahsa to the morality police headquarters, it is not possible to defend the rights of the parents, and … to resolve the ambiguities about the cause of death.”