Barely a year has passed since the death of Jina Masha Amini at the hands of the morality police that the story resonates again in Tehran. NGOs and Iranian opposition media based abroad have accused morality agents of having "attacked" a 16-year-old Iranian student on Sunday for not wearing the hijab in the capital's subway, which has ignited the social networks in which the case is compared to that of Amini. However, her family and the media related to the ayatollah regime gave a very different version of the events.
Armita Garawand was hospitalized with a head injury after allegedly being pushed by women from the morality police who are responsible for enforcing the dress code that requires covering one's hair, according to Hengaw, an Iranian Kurdish rights NGO. based in Norway. Originally from the city of Kermanshah, in the predominantly Kurdish west of Iran, the young woman lives in Tehran.
Garawand is being treated under strict security measures at the Fajr Air Force Hospital and "visits are currently not authorized, not even from her family," the organization added in a statement published on Tuesday. A journalist from the Shargh newspaper who approached the health center to investigate the events was arrested.
The girl was admitted on Sunday morning with very weak vital signs and severe loss of consciousness, as well as symptoms of a "head trauma," sources close to the case reported to Iran Wire, an Iranian media outlet in exile. In the initial emergency examination it is mentioned that the patient was admitted in a coma.
Iran's official IRNA news agency reported on Monday that a 16-year-old high school student had fainted after a "power drop" in the subway. The general director of the Tehran metro, Masood Dorosti, denied any "verbal or physical altercation" between the teenager "and the passengers or staff of the metro."
In the images from the security cameras of the Plaza de los Mártires (Shuhada) metro station published by the regime's agency, three teenagers with their backpacks, including Garawand without the veil, are seen entering a train at 7 in the morning. Seconds later, the girl's friends and other passengers carry her limp body onto the platform and remain next to her assisting her until the security guards take her away.
The teenager's parents corroborated the official information in an interview published in the government news agency Fars. "We have reviewed all the videos and it has been shown to us that this incident was an accident," said the father, who had previously confirmed that his daughter suffered a drop in blood pressure, although she had no previous health problems nor was she taking medication. The mother warned that the statements circulating on social networks and the internet about the alleged attack against her daughter "are not true."
In the Islamic Republic of Iran, there are known cases of pressure on witnesses or relatives of people who have been arrested or attacked by security forces. In the case of the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, for example, the family was pressured to offer a message to the public to calm the protests or to keep a low profile. His lawyer, Saleh Nikbakht, faces trial for spreading anti-regime propaganda to the international media.
"Given the circumstances and the heavy security presence at the hospital and the denial of visits, the case has raised public concern about the possibility of a repeat of the Jina Amini scenario," says Hengaw, using the Kurdish name of the young woman. 22 years old who fell into a coma on September 14, 2022 after receiving a beating at the police station for not wearing her veil properly.
His death sparked protests that lasted several months before losing momentum in a crackdown that cost the lives of more than 550 protesters, according to the group Iran Human Rights (IHR). Jina Mahsa Amini's family says he died from a blow to the head, which authorities deny.
Although during the peak of the protests the morality police were withdrawn from the streets, last July they returned to the fray with the aim of warning women and girls about the obligation to wear the hijab, especially strictly at bus stations. Tehran metro. In August, online newspaper Faraz revealed that the capital's city council had hired 400 "hijab officers." In September, the Iranian parliament approved a law that provides for imprisonment of up to ten years to reimpose the veil.
