ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq – The city of Mahabad in Iran’s western Kurdish Region (Rojhelat) held overnight demonstrations and went on a general strike on Thursday in protest of the killing of a 14-year-old boy, leading authorities to impose heavy security measures.

Siawash Alak, a 14-year-old Mahabad resident, was stabbed to death on Wednesday, allegedly by a 16-year-old member of the Mangur tribe, a notorious family from Mukriyan with heavy ties to the government.

In the wake of the teenager’s killing, hundreds of residents joined overnight protests demanding justice for the victim’s family, followed by a general strike at Mahabad’s Grand Bazaar the morning after.

Alak hailed from the Seyyida Kurda tribe, a well-known Kurdish nationalist tribe in the Mukriyan region.

As tensions rose and protests spread, the city’s governor and the local commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) visited the victim’s family home and promised to deliver justice, providing proof that the suspect had been arrested, a source within Alak’s family told The New Region on Thursday.

The city of Mahabad in Rojhelat (western Iran) has been embroiled in protests and a general strike after a Kurdish youth was stabbed to death by another teenager, with Iranian security forces having increased their presence amid the public outrage. pic.twitter.com/oBdoS86izD

— The New Region (@thenewregion) July 2, 2026

Authorities have informed the family that the suspect could remain in detention until reaching the legal age of 18, after which he would face legal proceedings.

“We will not remain silent until we get justice,” the source said, lamenting the loss of the family’s only son.

Several other sources in the city told The New Region on Thursday that Mahabad had been placed under heightened security measures, as security forces feared the protests could spread.

The opposition Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI) addressed the incident in a statement on Thursday, urging people “not to remain silent” in the face of what it described as aggression by “the regime’s mercenaries,” and called for unity in the face of such adversity.

“The regime’s mercenaries must know that they can no longer continue their crimes against the people of Kurdistan,” the KDPI said, warning that those affiliated with the government should fear “the day of liberation.”

Iran’s Islamic regime has a long history of violently suppressing dissent and cracking down on protests, garnering international condemnation for the brutality displayed during the recent protests in January, the Jin Jiyan Azadi (Women, Life, Freedom) nationwide demonstrations in 2022, and the Bloody November movement in 2019, when tens of thousands were killed, injured, and arrested.

Although the Mangur tribe played a role in Kurdish political developments before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, most of its members aligned with the Iranian government after the revolution and became part of local forces involved in suppressing Kurdish movements in Rojhelat. 

Its members, now mostly residing in Mahabad, Piranshahr, Sardasht and other border areas of Rojhelat, have remained armed and are believed to have cooperated with the IRGC in numerous instances. They have been accused of involvement in threatening, assaulting, and killing civilians to spread fear among the population.