In this picture from surveillance video aired by Iranian state tv, ladies pull 16-year-old Armita Gheravand out of a automobile on the Tehran Metro in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, October 1, 2023. Pool (WANA/Reuters)
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) – An Iranian teenager who was injured in a mysterious incident in Tehran’s metro a number of weeks in the past as a result of she was not sporting a headband has died, state media says. reported on Saturday.
Armita Gheravand’s loss of life was introduced after she had been in a coma for weeks in Tehran and on the one-year anniversary of the loss of life of 22-year-old Martha Amini, which sparked nationwide protests on the time. .
Ms. Gelavand’s harm on October 1 and her loss of life come as ladies, particularly in Tehran and elsewhere, proceed to disregard Iran’s obligation to put on the scarf (hijab) as an expression of dissatisfaction with Iran’s theocracy. There is a danger that public anger can be reignited.
It added: “As lengthy because the Iranian authorities enforces strict hijab legal guidelines, the lives of Iranian women and girls can be in danger and they are going to be uncovered to critical rights violations, together with violence and even loss of life.”
Read extra: Iranian authorities pushes again as extra ladies defy hijab regulation
Iran’s state-run IRNA information company reported Gelavand’s loss of life with out mentioning wider unrest over the scarf regulation. Gheravand was injured at Meydan E. Shohada metro station (Martyrs Square) in southern Tehran.
“Unfortunately, the sufferer remained in a coma for some time as a result of mind injury and died a couple of minutes in the past,” the IRNA report stated. “According to the official principle of Armita Gelavant’s medical doctors, she fell and suffered a mind harm after her blood stress dropped sharply, adopted by steady convulsions, decreased cerebral oxygenation, and cerebral edema. Ta.”
Questions stay about what occurred within the few seconds Armita Gelavant boarded the practice on October 1st. Her pal advised Iranian state tv that she hit her head on the station platform, however the silent footage broadcast by the station from exterior the practice was blocked by bystanders. After only a few seconds, her limp physique was carried away.
However, the Iranian state TV report didn’t embrace the footage from the practice, nor did it clarify why it was not launched. Most automobiles within the Tehran metro are outfitted with a number of surveillance cameras that may be monitored by safety guards.
Geraband’s mother and father appeared on state media footage and stated that blood stress issues, a fall, or each contributed to their daughter’s accidents.
Activists overseas say Ms Geraband could have been pushed or attacked for not sporting a hijab. They additionally known as for an impartial investigation by a United Nations fact-finding mission into Iran, citing the theocracy’s historical past of utilizing stress on victims’ households and airing tons of of coerced confessions on state tv.
The Associated Press has not been capable of affirm the precise nature of Geraband’s accidents.
The Hengo human rights company, which stories on human rights abuses in Iran’s western Kurdish area and beforehand printed a photograph of a comatose Gelavand, on Saturday renewed an impartial worldwide investigation, citing “the Islamic Republic’s observe of concealing the reality.” I requested for it.
“For the previous 28 days, the Islamic Republic of Iran has tried to distort the story of the federal government’s homicide of this teenage woman,” the group claimed.
The Oslo-based Iranian human rights group known as for an investigation as properly.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah: “Unless an impartial worldwide investigation proves in any other case, Ali Khamenei is personally accountable for the loss of life of Armita Garavand,” the group’s head, Mahmoud Amiri Moghaddam, stated. Ta.
Gheravand’s harm and subsequent loss of life prompted Iran to carry its morality police (whom activists say have been accountable for Amini’s loss of life) again on the streets, and members of parliament to punish those that ignored obligatory head coverings. This can be as a result of promotion of enforcement of even harsher penalties. Internationally, Gheravand’s harm sparked renewed criticism of Iran’s remedy of girls and the requirement to put on the hijab.
On Saturday, Abram Paley, the U.S. deputy particular envoy for Iran, wrote on-line that he was mourning Gelavand’s loss of life.
“Violence in opposition to ladies and ladies by the Iranian state has a devastating impression on many households in Iran and overseas,” he wrote.
Amini died in hospital on September 16, 2022, after being detained by Iran’s ethical police on suspicion of sporting the hijab inappropriately. Allegations that she was crushed throughout her arrest sparked large protests, posing the largest problem to Iran’s theocratic authorities because the revolution.
Since these large-scale protests have subsided, many ladies have been seen in Tehran not sporting hijabs in defiance of the regulation.
Meanwhile, imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month for her tireless campaigning for ladies’s rights, democracy and in opposition to the loss of life penalty. Iran’s authorities has criticized the award as a political stunt, rejecting its personal decades-long marketing campaign concentrating on Muhammadi’s work.
Iran stays beneath stress from sanctions and faces ever-increasing tensions with the West over its burgeoning nuclear program and assist for regional extremist teams. In the wake of Hamas’s unprecedented assaults and conflict with Israel, relations with Hamas are within the highlight once more.
For strict Muslim ladies, overlaying the pinnacle exhibits piety earlier than God and modesty earlier than males exterior the household. In Iran, the hijab, and the full-body black chador worn by some, has additionally lengthy been a political image, particularly because it grew to become obligatory within the years after her 1979 Islamic revolution.
Only Iran and neighboring Taliban-controlled Afghanistan require ladies to put on the hijab.