(Paris) A 16-year-old Iranian teenager has fallen into a coma and is being treated in a hospital under high surveillance after an “attack” in the Tehran metro, a group defending the rights of Iranian Kurds said on Tuesday.
According to the NGO Hengaw, based in Norway, the teenager, called Armita Garawand, was seriously injured during an altercation in the metro with female members of the moral police. Originally from the city of Kermanshah, in predominantly Kurdish western Iran, the girl lives in Tehran, according to Hengaw.
On Monday, the official Iranian news agency IRNA said that a 16-year-old student had fainted on Sunday after a “drop in tension” in the metro. The general director of the Tehran metro, Masood Dorosti, denied any “verbal or physical altercation” between the teenager “and passengers or metro executives”.
Iranian authorities remain on alert, a little more than a year after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd who was arrested by police for allegedly violating strict dress rules imposed on women in Iran, including the wearing of the veil obligatory in public.
His death sparked protests that lasted several months before losing momentum in the face of a crackdown that cost the lives of more than 550 demonstrators, according to the group Iran Human Rights (IHR). Mahsa Amini’s family says she died from a blow to the head, which authorities deny.
According to Hengaw, “Armita Garawand, a 16-year-old girl, has been in a coma since Sunday 1er October following serious injuries caused by an attack perpetrated by female officers of the moral police in the Shohada metro in Tehran.
The young girl is being treated under high security at Fajr hospital and “no visits are currently authorized, not even from her family”, added the group, specifying that the police officers judged that the teenager did not respect the headscarf.
Maryam Lotfi, daily journalist Sharghsought to go to the hospital the day after the incident and was briefly detained, according to Hengaw.
The case has fueled discussions on social networks, with an alleged video which, according to some, shows the teenager, with friends and apparently without a veil, pushed in the metro by policewomen.
The IranWire news site, based outside Iran, cited a source as saying she suffered “head injuries” after being pushed by the agents.