A teenager girl has died weeks after she was mysteriously injured in a metro train in Iran's capital Tehran while not wearing a h🀅ijab, according to Irܫan's state media.
The girl has been identified as 16-year-old Armita Geravand. In footage of the incident, she is seen entering a Tehran Metro station and boarding a train without wearing a hijab. Shortly after she boards the train, she is t✱aken out of the train in visibly unconscious state.
While the circumstances are unclear, exiled Ir💯an♕ian activists and overseas Iran-focussed news outlets have said Armita was assaulted over not wearing hijab.
Women are required by law to wear hijab in Iran in public. The rule was imposed after the Islamic Revolution of🌠 1979 overthrew the liberal, pro-West mo🤪narchy and installed a theocratic regime in the country that has since regulated what women can wear in public and how the two genders would mingle in public.
Iran International reported, "On October 1st, Armita, a high school student, fell into a coma after she was stopped by hijab enforcers in Tehran subway. Although, the government prevented any clear informa﷽tion about what took place, but apparently a woman agent pushed her and Armita fell, receiving a sꩲevere head injury."
While Iranian state media announced Armita's death on Saturday, activists had reported earlier this week that she had been d♏eclared brain dead. She had reportedly been in coma since the incident at the train station.
Armita's injury happened within weeks of the first anniversary of the custodial death of Mahsa Amini, whose death had triggered nationwide women-led protests in Iran t🧸hat went on for months until the Iranian regime brutally suppressed them. Amini was out with her brother in Tehran when she was detained by the country's morality police for allegedly not wearing hijab. Day later, she died from custodial beatings.
The outrage following Amini's death led to nationwideꦜ protests in which women took off hijabs, burnt th🌠em, and cut their hair in protests. The protests emerged as the biggest challenge to the Iranian regime in a long time. Several prominent Iranians, including sportspersons and actors, took part in the protests, many of whom have since suffered consequences, such as being convicted in Iran to being forced to relocate to another country.
In the year since Amini's death, the Iranian regime has brutally suppressed the protests, killing 529 and detaining over 19,700, according to data cited ꦉby the Associated Press (AP) separately earlier th✤is month.
Following the reports of Armita's death, AP reported that activists overseas have called for an in🐽dependent United Nations (UN)-led investigation.
"Activists abroad have alleged Geravand may have been pushed or attacked because she was not wearing the hi💃jab. They demanded an independent investigation by the United Nations' fact-finding mission on Iran, citing the theocracy's use of pressu꧂re on victims' families and state TV's history of airing hundreds of coerced confessions," reported AP.
A year after Amini's death and the suppression of dissent, the Iranian r✱egime has also brought even tougher hijabꦡ laws, which have increased the punishment for not wearing the hijab and have increased regulation of women's and men's conduct in public. The costs for support of any dissent by prominent Iranians have also been increased by imposing internet and travel bans on them, which means that any social media influencer🌜, actor, or sportsperson supporting any protest would be at risk of losing their career under any laws.
