Iranian girl in coma after alleged assault by hijab police
The case of Armita Garawand is eerily similar to that of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody last year after she was arrested for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code.
A 16-year-old girl was left in a coma after reportedly being assaulted by Iran’s notorious morality police on a subway in Tehran for failing to wear her hijab properly, a rights group revealed on Tuesday, in a case reminiscent of Mahsa Amini’s death in custody last year.
Witnesses say Armita Garawand, a Tehran resident from the city of Kermanshah in Iran's mainly Kurdish west, was attacked by morality police officers at the Shohada station of the Tehran Metro on Sunday. The Iranian Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, a Norway-based group that monitors abuses in Iranian Kurdistan, said it received reports that Garawand was severely injured and lost consciousness before she was transferred to the Fajr Hospital in the capital.
She is being kept under tight security conditions and visits are forbidden even to her family, sources told Hengaw.
VIDEO: 16-year-old Armita Garawand was reportedly assaulted by Iran's morality police. She remains in a coma. Last year, Iranian police killed Masha Amini in a similar incident, sparking nationwide protests. pic.twitter.com/OwC4Tn4FbJ
— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) October 3, 2023
The rights group said on Wednesday that government security agents seized the phones of all family members after images of Garawand in the hospital circulated in the media.
