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Just over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini, the twenty-two-year-old who was in a coma for days while in the custody of the morality police, beaten and died from the beatings she suffered because she did not wear the headscarf properly, another young Iranian is in critical condition in hospital, two recognized human rights activists told Reuters on Wednesday. The girl is in a coma, activists say, following a clash with officers in the Tehran subway for violating the hijab law. The girl’s name is Armita Geravand, she is 16 years old, and the fear is that she could end up like Mahsa Amini, the young girl in whose name there have been protests for months throughout Iran. The regime denies the version that rages on social media and in the Iranian media in exile but the security forces surrounded the hospital to prevent people from gathering and protesting.
While authorities denied claims by human rights groups that Geravand has been in a coma since Sunday after a clash with officers enforcing the Islamic dress code, Iranian-Kurdish rights group Hengaw published the photo of the unconscious girl to a hospital in Tehran where she was taken after the accident.
There was no response from Iran’s Interior Ministry to a request for comment on the incident.
«We are following his case closely. She is in a coma in the intensive care unit of the hospital and her condition is critical … her relatives said that there is a massive presence of plainclothes officers at the hospital, ”said one of the activists in Iran. The second activist said security forces had banned Geravand’s parents from posting her photo on social media or speaking to human rights groups. The activists have chosen anonymity given the consequences they may face if they expose themselves with their name and surname.
CCTV footage, shared on IRNA, showed Geravand without the mandatory hijab accompanied by two friends walking towards the train from the subway platform. Upon entering the carriage, one of the girls is seen immediately recoiling and falling to the ground, before another girl is dragged unconscious from the carriage by passengers. Reuters was unable to verify the authenticity of the footage.