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Images of a teenage girl comatose in a Tehran hospital have raised fears among Iranians of a fresh case resembling that of Mahsa Amini, who died in 2022 after being arrested for allegedly breaching the country’s strict hijab laws.
The latest case prompted a clash on social media between the foreign minister of Germany and Iran’s foreign ministry after activists said Armita Geravand, 16, had been attacked by “authorities” for an alleged violation of the rules governing women’s headscarves in the country.
Geravand lost consciousness on Tehran’s metro as she travelled to school on Sunday morning with friends. CCTV footage from the station showed her entering a metro train, only to be pulled out unconscious by her friends a few seconds later. The metro’s management and state media said she had suffered a drop in blood pressure.
The apparent echoes of Amini, whose death in September 2022 triggered nationwide anti-government protests after images of her in a coma went viral online, have prompted fears of a similar incident.
“The problem is you think it is plausible that she was pushed back or hit as she tried to enter the metro station without a hijab,” said Reza, a 22-year-old university student. “[I] don’t want to imagine that we have another Mahsa Amini.”
Hundreds of people were killed during months of protests against Iran’s Islamic regime following Amini’s death. Tehran blamed “outside forces” for what they said was a false account of her injuries.
The Tehran metro’s managing director, Masoud Dorosti, told state news agency IRNA that Geravand had fainted as a result of a drop in blood pressure, hitting her head. No images have emerged from within the train carriage where Geravand lost consciousness.
In a video posted on IRNA, Geravand’s mother, sitting beside her husband, said that the family had been “told that her blood pressure dropped”.
At the same time, Hengaw, a human rights group based outside Iran, claimed that Geravand was “physically attacked by authorities” in Shohada metro station “for what they perceived as non-compliance with the compulsory hijab, as a result of which she sustained severe injuries”.
The claims come after the metro system in recent months hired “guardians of hijab”, who are posted in stations to prevent women refusing to obey rules on head coverings from using public transport.
An Iranian journalist was briefly arrested on Monday when she went to the hospital to report on Geravand, Iranian media reported. Two female journalists who reported on Amini’s hospitalisation and death have been jailed since last year.
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said on social media platform X on Tuesday: “Once again a young woman in #Iran is fighting for her life. Just because she showed her hair in the subway. It is unbearable.” She added that the girl’s parents “do not belong in front of cameras, but have the right to be at their daughter’s bedside”.
Nasser Kanaani, spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry, retorted on X on Wednesday: “Instead of interventionist and biased remarks and expressing insincere concern over Iranian women and girls, you’d better be concerned about US, German and UK healthcare personnel, patients and tackle their situation.”
Since the protests that followed Amini’s death, many women have refused to wear headscarves in public, with authorities largely turning a blind eye.
However, some hardline politicians have insisted the law on the head coverings should once again be fully enforced, while parliament passed a law last month to tighten its supervision of the hijab.
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