The house in the town of Khomein in the western province of Markazi burned late on Thursday as crowds of jubilant protesters marched past, according to images posted on social media, which were verified by AFP. Khomeini is said to have been born at home in the town of Khomein – where his surname comes from – at the turn of the century. He became a cleric deeply critical of the US-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, moved into exile, and then returned triumphantly from France in 1979 to lead the Islamic Revolution. Khomeini died in 1989, but remains revered by the clerical leadership under his successor, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. The house was later turned into a museum in memory of Khomeini. It was not immediately clear what damage was sustained. Iran’s Tasnim news agency later denied there had been a fire, saying “the door of the historic house is open for visitors.” “The counter-revolutionary media is trying to create unrest by spreading lies and false information. The burning of the historic house of Imam Khomeini, a place of spiritual value for Iranians, was one of those lies,” deputy governor of Markazi province, Behnam Nazari, was quoted as saying. The protests sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini, who had been arrested by morality police, are the biggest street challenge to Iran’s leaders since the 1979 revolution. They were fueled by anger over Khomeini’s compulsory headscarf for women, but have morphed into a movement calling for the end of the Islamic Republic itself. Khomeini’s effigies have been burned or vandalized at times by protesters, in acts of taboo against a figure whose death is still marked each June with a holiday of mourning. On Friday, mourners at the funeral of a young boy whose family says he was killed by Iranian security forces chanted anti-regime slogans and mocked the official account of his death. Hundreds of mourners flocked to the southwestern Iranian city of Izeh for Kian Pirfalak’s funeral, according to videos posted online. His mother said at the funeral service that Kian was shot on Wednesday by security forces, although Iranian officials insisted he was killed in a “terrorist” attack carried out by an extremist group. “Hear it from me about how the shooting happened, so they can’t say it was by terrorists because they are lying,” his mother told mourners, according to a video posted by the activist Twitter account 1500tasvir. “Maybe they thought we wanted to shoot or something and they put bullets in the car … plainclothes forces shot my child. This is.”
