A human rights organization claims that morality police in Tehran beat a 16-year-old Iranian girl into a coma over the weekend for disobeying the hijab dress code.
According to the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, Armita Garawand was beaten on the Tehran Metro on Sunday night and is presently in the intensive care unit at Fajr Hospital.
“Her current condition is reportedly critical,” Hengaw said in a statement to Fox News. “After two days in the ICU, she remains in a stupor. At Fajr Hospital, government security forces have established a secure environment, denying access to visitors, including her family. The Iranian authorities confiscated the mobile phones of Armita’s family members after a photograph of her in a coma was published, according to our most recent information.
However, according to Iran’s Fars news agency, the teen fainted due to a drop in her blood pressure and hit her head on the side of the train compartment.
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In an interview with the state-run media outlet, the parents of the adolescent stated that she had not been attacked.
“After reviewing all of the videos, we have concluded that this incident was an accident,” her father stated. “We ask for prayers for our child’s recovery.”
The edited footage published by state-run media does not depict what transpired within the train. Instead, the footage shows only the teen boarding the train and then cuts to what appear to be her companions carrying her out. It was unclear if she was donning a head covering in the footage.
The human rights organization asserts that the parents were coerced into speaking and that security forces are restricted from entering the hospital.
The morality police in Iran have been primarily responsible for enforcing the country’s strict Islamic dress code, which requires women to wear loose, long garments and a headscarf or hijab on their heads.
Activists have drawn parallels to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody last year, after she was arrested for not donning a head covering in public.
Demonstrations erupted for months across the county in response to Amini’s demise. According to international rights organizations, police crackdowns caused approximately 400 deaths, including 50 children. Approximately thirty members of the Iranian security forces were slain during the protests.
