DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — An Iranian teenage woman injured weeks in the past in a mysterious incident on Tehran’s Metro whereas not sporting a headband has died, state media reported Saturday.
The dying of Armita Geravand comes after her being in a coma for weeks in Tehran and after the one-year anniversary of the dying of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini which sparked nationwide protests on the time.
Geravand’s Oct. 1 damage and now her dying threaten to reignite that widespread anger, significantly as girls in Tehran and elsewhere nonetheless defy Iran’s obligatory scarf, or hijab, legislation as an indication of their discontent with Iran’s theocracy.
Iran’s state-run IRNA information company reported Geravand’s dying, with out noting the broader unrest surrounding the scarf legislation.
What occurred within the few seconds after Armita Geravand entered the practice on Oct. 1 stays in query. Whereas a pal instructed Iranian state tv that she hit her head on the station’s platform, the soundless footage aired by the broadcaster from exterior of the automobile is blocked by a bystander. Simply seconds later, her limp physique is carried off.
Iranian state TV’s report, nevertheless, didn’t embody any footage from contained in the practice itself and supplied no rationalization on why it hadn’t been launched. Most practice automobiles on the Tehran Metro have a number of CCTV cameras, that are viewable by safety personnel.
Geravand’s dad and mom appeared in state media footage saying a blood stress subject, a fall or maybe each contributed to their daughter’s damage.
Activists overseas have alleged Geravand might have been pushed or attacked for not sporting the hijab. In addition they demanded an unbiased investigation by the United Nations’ fact-finding mission on Iran, citing the theocracy’s use of stress on victims’ households and state TV’s historical past of airing a whole lot of coerced confessions.
The Related Press has not been capable of verify the precise circumstances of what brought about Geravand’s accidents.
The Hengaw Group for Human Rights, which stories on abuses in Iran’s western Kurdish area and earlier revealed {a photograph} of Geravand in a coma, renewed its calls Saturday for an unbiased worldwide investigation citing “the follow of the Islamic Republic in concealing the reality.”
“Over the past 28 days, the Islamic Republic of Iran tried to distort the narrative of the federal government homicide of this teenage woman,” the group alleged.
Geravand suffered her damage on the Meydan-E Shohada, or Martyrs’ Sq., Metro station in southern Tehran. Rumors about how she suffered the damage rapidly circulated, one thing not talked about by the IRNA report on her dying Saturday.
“Sadly, the mind harm to the sufferer brought about her to spend a while in a coma and she or he died a couple of minutes in the past,” the IRNA report learn. “In line with the official idea of Armita Geravand’s medical doctors, after a sudden drop in blood stress, she suffered a fall, a mind damage, adopted by steady convulsions, decreased cerebral oxygenation and a cerebral edema.”
Geravand’s damage additionally got here as Iran has put its morality police — whom activists implicate in Amini’s dying — again on the road, and as lawmakers push to implement even stricter penalties for these flouting the required head masking. Internationally, Geravand’s damage sparked renewed criticism of Iran’s remedy of ladies and of the obligatory hijab legislation.
Amini died in a hospital on Sept. 16, 2022, after she was detained by Iranian morality police on allegations of improperly sporting the hijab. Suspicions that she was overwhelmed throughout her arrest led to mass protests that represented the biggest problem to Iran’s theocratic authorities for the reason that revolution.
Since these large-scale protests subsided, many ladies in Tehran might be seen with out the hijab in defiance of the legislation.
In the meantime, imprisoned Iranian activist Narges Mohammadi received the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month in recognition of her tireless campaigning for girls’s rights and democracy, and in opposition to the dying penalty. The Iranian authorities criticized her awarding of the prize as a political stunt, with out acknowledging its personal decadeslong marketing campaign focusing on Mohammadi for her work.
Iran stays squeezed by sanctions and faces ever-rising tensions with the West over its quickly advancing nuclear program and its support to regional militant teams, together with a renewed concentrate on its relationship with Hamas following that group’s unprecedented assault on and battle with Israel.
For observant Muslim girls, the pinnacle masking is an indication of piety earlier than God and modesty in entrance of males exterior their households. In Iran, the hijab — and the all-encompassing black chador worn by some — has lengthy been a political image as nicely, significantly after turning into obligatory within the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Iran and neighboring Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are the one nations the place the hijab stays obligatory for girls.