Iranian religious scholar and civil activist Sedigheh Vasmaghi said there is no legal basis for admitting a young woman into psychiatric care because she took her clothes off in apparent protest against harassment outside her Tehran university.
"Even if someone suffers from mental health disorders, diagnosing that is not up to judicial authorities or the police, not to mention that admitting someone into a psychiatric facility should not be a punishment," Vasmaghi told RFE/RL's Radio Farda on November 5.
"Punishments need to be legal…. Whoever [admitted her] has committed an illegal act," said Vasmaghi, who lives in Iran.
Videos emerged on social media on November 2 showing a young woman stripped to her underwear and walking around outside a university in Tehran.
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Stripping In Protest? Amnesty Calls for Immediate Release Of Iranian Woman (Video)
The circumstances that led to her taking off her clothes remain unclear, but witnesses say she was harassed by the university's security officers over what she had been wearing. One video showed officers violently forcing the unidentified woman into a car.
Reports in Iranian media later alleged she was suffering from mental illness and that she was taken to a psychiatric hospital.
Rights groups have condemned her treatment and demanded her immediate release.
Amnesty International on November 3 said, "Pending her release, authorities must protect her from torture & other ill-treatment & ensure access to family & lawyer."
Sedigheh Vasmaghi
The Oslo-based Iran Human Rights on November 4 decried what it described as the Islamic republic's use of "psychiatric hospitals as tools of repression to delegitimize acts of protest and silence dissenting voices."
Echoing the same sentiment, Vasmaghi said Iranian authorities had a track record of sending protesters to psychiatric wards to "belittle and punish" them.
"Women have made their decision and they will not retreat" from demanding the freedom to choose how to dress, the activist said.
"The authorities must accept that and stop doing things that increase tensions in society," she added.