Iranian Girl's Hospitalization After Subway Incident Draws Parallels With Mahsa Amini's Case

When Armita Garavand and two of her friends tried to enter a Tehran subway station, they were confronted by police officers for not wearing the mandatory hijab.

The officers physically assaulted the 16-year-old Garavand, who later fell unconscious after entering a subway carriage.

Garavand was rushed to the Fajr Air Force Hospital outside Tehran, where she has been in a coma since October 1.

That is according to human rights groups and journalists who claim that Garavand is the latest victim of the brutal enforcement of Iran's controversial hijab law.

Garavand’s case, and suggestions of a cover-up by the authorities, has drawn parallels with the events leading up to the death in custody of Mahsa Amini last year. Amini’s death soon after she was arrested for allegedly violating the hijab law triggered months of antiestablishment protests.

A source at the Fajr Air Force Hospital, who spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Farda on condition of anonymity due to security reasons, said Garavand had suffered internal bleeding in the brain and was in critical condition.

Garavand is under guard at the hospital, the source said, adding that plainclothes police officers were preventing visitors from entering the intensive-care unit where the teenager was being treated.

The authorities have not commented on Garavand’s condition or revealed where she is being treated.

'Severe Physical Assault'

Iran's official news agency, IRNA, has claimed that Garavand fainted after a drop in blood pressure and bumped her head on the side of the subway carriage.

CCTV footage released by IRNA, which appeared to be edited, shows a group of girls without the hijab, or head scarf, entering a carriage. Almost immediately, one of the girls backs off and reaches for the ground. She drags out another girl, who appears to be unconscious, from the carriage.

Masood Dorosti, the head of the Tehran Metro Operating Company, told IRNA that there had been no "verbal or physical conflict" between the young passengers and company employees.

The entrance to Tehran's subway stations are often guarded by police officers or company employees, who deny access to women not observing the Islamic dress code.

Iran's hard-line Fars news agency on October 3 published an interview with Garavand’s parents, who said she was not assaulted by police officers in the subway.

"We have checked all the videos, and it has been proven to us that this incident was an accident," her unnamed father was quoted as saying. "We ask people to pray for our child’s recovery."

The authorities have been previously accused of forcing family members into making statements that toe the official line.

Hengaw, a Norway-based group that monitors rights violations in Iran, has rejected the official version of events. The group said on October 3 that Garavand was the victim of a "severe physical assault" by members of the notorious morality police and she was targeted due to her "noncompliance with the compulsory hijab."

Hengaw posted what it said was a photo of Garavand lying unconscious in her hospital bed.

On October 4, the group said that "security entities have placed extreme control over her family to prevent any publication of information," and added that "government security agents have seized the mobile phones of all members of Armita's family."

Gavarand, who lives with her family in Tehran, is originally from the city of Kohdasht in the western province of Lorestan, according to information obtained by Radio Farda.

Dadban, an Iran-based rights group, said on October 4 that "Iranian security institutions have said her condition was caused by low pressure -- an oft-repeated scenario from such institutions."

Farzad Seifikaran, a journalist at Radio Zamaneh, a Persian-language broadcaster based in The Netherlands, was the first to report the incident.

Without identifying Garavand, Seifikaran said on X, formerly known as Twitter, on October 1 that a female high-school student was hospitalized following a confrontation with officers.

Iran's Shargh daily, meanwhile, said on October 2 that one of its journalists was briefly detained after she went to the military hospital where Garavand is being treated.

'Cover-Up'

Iranian social media users have drawn parallels with the case of the 22-year-old Amini, whose family maintained that she had been beaten by the morality police while being driven to a Tehran detention facility. Officials claimed that she had fallen into a coma after a dispute with guards due to a preexisting health condition.

During her brief stay at the Kasra Hospital in northern Tehran, images of Amini bleeding from one of her ears cast further doubts on the official narrative.

Reporters Nilufar Hamedi and Elahe Mohammadi, who helped expose the case of Amini, were arrested. Both have been held in pretrial detention since September and face charges that include "collaborating with the hostile government of America, conspiracy and collusion to commit crimes against national security, and propaganda against the establishment."

Milad Alavi, a journalist at Shargh, said on X that the authorities' refusal to release footage of Garavand inside the subway carriage was creating "mistrust" among the public.

Mohsen Borhani, an Iranian lawyer, suggested that the authorities had prevented many media outlets from reporting on the incident. "Reporting about such an incident is not a crime," he said.

Iran’s former crown prince, Reza Pahlavi, an exiled opposition leader, accused the authorities of a “cover-up.” He said the authorities could not be trusted after "spreading lies and concealing Mahsa's murder."

Following Amini's death, the Iranian regime has intensified its enforcement of the hijab law, including passing new legislation that penalizes women who fail to observe the compulsory Islamic head scarf with prison terms that can run up to a decade.