A teenager who fell into a coma after an alleged beating by Iran’s morality police on the Tehran subway earlier this month has died, according to reports.
Activists say Armita Geravand, 17, fell soon after being targeted by one of the country’s morality squads in one of the city’s metro stations on Oct. 1, for not wearing a head-covering or hijab.
Iranian authorities claim Geravand fainted on the subway and “hit the back of her head against the edge of the platform” when she fell at Tehran’s Shohada Station, according to the country’s state media.
She died early Saturday “after suffering from brain damage,” news agencies in Iran reported.
CCTV footage released by Iranian authorities shows Geravand, with her head uncovered, boarding a train with two other young women.
Moments later, one of the girls backs out of the train and bends down.
She and a few other passengers are then seen carrying Geravand out of the train and laying her down on the platform.
Surveillance video aired by Iranian state television, shows the moment 16-year-old Armita Geravand was pulled from a train car on the Tehran Metro in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. APNo video from inside the train was released.
Geravand was declared brain dead earlier this week.
A human rights group in Norway said it had received a report that Geravand was “the latest victim of forced hijab and has died after 28 days of hospitalization” at a military hospital closely monitored by the authorities.
The group, Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, which focuses on Iran’s Kurdish ethnic minority, called for an independent investigation into her death by Medecins Sans Frontieres and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
“However, security agencies not only prevented the formation of the fact-finding committee but also arrested independent journalists attempting to investigate her case at the hospital,” said Hengaw in a statement Saturday.
“Since her admission to the hospital, the security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran have covertly published misleading information and censored news,” Hengaw’s report said. “Among these actions, they have pressured Armita Garavand’s classmates, friends, and parents to provide accounts of planned security scenarios in front of government media cameras.”
“It’s worth noting that, despite the presence of numerous CCTV cameras, security authorities never released the complete videos of the route where Armita Garavand was assaulted by the agents,” Hengaw said.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has attempted to distort the narrative surrounding the government’s involvement in her death, claiming her death was due to a ‘pressure drop’ in the subway,” the statement continued.
Human rights groups have decried Iran and its Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. KHAMENEI.IR/AFP via Getty Images
APeople protest the death of Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini in Berlin, Germany, on Sept. 28, 2022. APMany are comparing Geravand’s plight to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody last year after she was detained by morality police for “improperly” wearing a hijab.
Anti-government protests spread throughout the country after Amini died.
The protests, which are ongoing, have resulted in hundreds of people being killed and thousands arrested by the country’s security forces.
With Post wires
