An Iranian teenaged girl is in critical condition in hospital, two prominent rights activists told media on Wednesday, after falling into a coma following what they said was a confrontation with agents in the Tehran metro for violating the hijab law.
Armita Geravand’s case is highly sensitive, raising concerns the 16-year-old might face the same fate as Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman whose death in a coma last year in the custody of morality police sparked months of nationwide protest.
While authorities have denied claims by rights groups that Geravand went into a coma on Sunday after a confrontation with officers enforcing the Islamic dress code, Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw posted her picture unconscious at a Tehran hospital where she was taken after the incident.
There was no immediate response from Iran’s interior ministry to a request for comment about the incident. “We are following her case closely. She is in coma at Intensive Care Unit of the hospital and her condition is critical … her relatives said there is a heavy presence of plain clothes at the hospital,” one of the activists in Iran said.
The second activist said security forces had forbidden Geravand’s parents from posting her picture on social media or from talking to human rights groups. The activists spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter. CCTV footage, shared on IRNA, showed Geravand without mandatory hijab accompanied by two female friends walking toward the train from the metro platform.
