Iran Under Fire for Police Assault on Teenage Girl

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05th Oct, 2023. 07:00 pm
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Activists claim a teenage girl was assaulted by Iran’s morality police in Tehran’s metro for not wearing a headscarf.
Iranian authorities and the girl’s parents attribute her hospitalization to low blood pressure.
Hengaw Organization for Human Rights alleges the girl, Armita Geravand, was assaulted and in a coma.

Activists alleged that Iran‘s morality police had physically attacked a teenage girl at a metro station in Tehran because she was not wearing a headscarf, resulting in her hospitalization with severe injuries.

However, Iranian authorities and the girl’s parents claimed that her hospitalization was due to low blood pressure.

A group based in Norway, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, which focuses on Kurdish rights, asserted that 16-year-old Armita Geravand had been “assaulted” by morality police and had been in a coma since Sunday.

Another opposition network called IranWire stated that it had received information indicating that Geravand had been admitted to the hospital with “head trauma.”

“Before she arrived at the Shohada metro station, female morality police officers approached her and requested that she adjust her hijab.

This request resulted in an altercation with the morality police officers physically assaulting Armita. She was pushed, leading to her collapse,” Hengaw staffer Awyer Shekhi told media.

“Following this confrontation, she managed to enter the metro, but collapsed later on,” Shekhi added.

The CEO of the Tehran metro, as reported by state media, stated that there had been no physical or verbal contact between Geravand and any of his staff members.

“According to our investigation, after reviewing the CCTV footage from the moment she entered the station and got on the train, there was no verbal or physical altercation between the passengers with them or our staff. There was nothing recorded on the videos,” Tehran metro managing director Masoud Dorosti, told state media.

In a video shared on the X platform, previously known as Twitter, by the state-affiliated Fars News Agency, a group of girls is observed entering a metro train. It is important to note that CNN cannot ascertain the identity of Geravand among the girls in the video.

Among the girls entering the train with Geravand, some were not wearing headscarves. Subsequently, the video depicts a group of girls assisting Geravand out of the metro train, placing her on the metro platform, and then the train departs from the station.

The video posted on state media does not depict any visible altercation, although CNN has been unable to verify its authenticity.

In an interview with state media, Geravand’s parents stated that their daughter seemed to have struck her head after fainting due to low blood pressure while she was en route to school.

The parents emphasized that, based on the videos they had seen, there were no indications that Geravand had been subjected to an assault.

“I think they said she had low blood pressure… drop in blood pressure or fallen on the floor… her head hit the edge of the metro and then (her friends) took her off (the train),” her mother Shahin Ahmadi said.

“We checked the cameras. She went there…I am not sure…one of the girls was in front and one was behind her. She got on the train and fell… I don’t know …what happened…whether she was unconscious…she fainted…..they pulled her out and called the emergency care. She was then taken to the hospital,” said her father, Ahmad Garavand.

It remains uncertain whether Geravand’s family spoke to state media under duress. In the past, UN human rights officials and advocacy organizations have accused Iranian authorities of exerting pressure on the families of deceased protesters to make statements aligning with the government’s narrative.

As reported by Fars News Agency, the teenager is currently receiving medical treatment at a hospital in Tehran.

Additionally, IranWire has indicated in a separate statement published on Wednesday that she is undergoing treatment at Fajr Air Force Hospital.

Iran witnessed a series of protests in the wake of the case of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died while in custody after being arrested by Iran’s morality police last year for alleged improper hijab wear. Amini’s death led to widespread nationwide protests.

The UN disclosed in November of the previous year that more than 300 individuals, including over 40 children, had lost their lives during months-long protests.

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) estimated in January that the death toll exceeded 500, including 70 children.

Thousands of people were arrested across the country, as reported by the UN in a June statement, citing research released by their Human Rights Committee the previous year.

A journalist from the Iranian pro-reform outlet Shargh Daily was apprehended on Tuesday while attempting to report on Geravand’s condition at Fajr Air Force Hospital, as mentioned in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter. Subsequently, the reporter, Maryam Lotfi, has been released, according to the outlet’s report.

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Iran Under Fire for Police Assault on Teenage Girl

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