DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — A mysterious injury suffered by a 16-year-old girl who boarded a subway train in the Iranian capital without a headscarf has come to light shortly after the one-year anniversary of the deaths of Mahsa Amini and the Iranian capital reignited anger. It sparked nationwide protests.
What happened in the few seconds after Armita Geravand boarded the train on Sunday remains questionable. While a friend told Iranian state television that she hit her head on the station’s platform, the soundless footage broadcast by the station outside the car was blocked by a bystander. Just seconds later, her limp body is carried away.
Geravand’s mother and father said in state media footage that a blood pressure problem, a fall or perhaps both contributed to their daughter’s injury.
Activists abroad have claimed Geravand may have been pushed or attacked because she was not wearing a hijab. They call for an independent investigation by the United Nations fact-finding mission on Iran, citing the theocracy’s pressure on victims’ families and the history of hundreds of forced confessions being broadcast on state television.
Geravand’s injury also comes as Iran has sent its moral police – which activists have linked to Amini’s death because of her alleged loose hijab – back onto the streets and as lawmakers push to enforce even stricter penalties for those who violate the mandatory head covering violated.
“Girls are victims of violence on the streets, and then their families are forced to protect the government responsible for that violence,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.
For devout Muslim women, the head covering is a sign of piety before God and modesty towards men outside their family. In Iran, the hijab – and the all-encompassing black chador that some wear – has also long been a political symbol, particularly after it became mandatory in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran and neighboring Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are the only countries where the hijab remains mandatory for women.
Amini died in a hospital on September 16, 2022, after being arrested by Iran’s moral police on allegations of improper hijab wearing. Suspicions that she was beaten during her arrest led to mass protests that posed the biggest challenge to Iran’s theocratic government since the revolution.
Since these large-scale protests have subsided, many women in Tehran have been seen without hijabs, which is against the law.
Geravand suffered her injury on Sunday morning at the Meydan-E Shohada metro station, Martyrs’ Square in southern Tehran. Rumors quickly spread about how she sustained the injury.
On Tuesday, the Hengaw Human Rights Organization, which reports on abuses in Iran’s western Kurdish region, released a photo showing Geravand in hospital, her head wrapped in bandages as she lies in a coma.
Geravand “was physically attacked by the authorities at the Shohada station of the Tehran metro because, in her opinion, they had not complied with the hijab requirement,” Hengaw claimed, citing reports the company had received. “As a result, she suffered serious injuries and was transported to hospital.”
The Associated Press could not confirm the exact circumstances that led to Geravand’s injuries. Hengaw claimed on Thursday that security forces had arrested Geravand’s mother Shahin Ahmadi. Authorities in Tehran did not immediately acknowledge the claim, although semi-official news outlets have denied it.
Late Wednesday, Iranian state television aired what appeared to be almost all of the surveillance camera footage covering the 16 minutes Geravand spent in the subway station before her injury. She entered at 6:52 a.m. and then descended an escalator. The only gap, about a minute and a half, occurs before she reaches the turnstile where she uses her Metro card. The footage shows her buying a snack and then walking to the platform and waiting for the train.
In the silent recordings, Geravand, who activists describe as a taekwondo athlete, appears calm and healthy. A frame-by-frame analysis of the footage by AP found no evidence that the video broadcast was manipulated.
At 7:08 a.m. Geravand enters carriage number 134 – the last one on the train and probably an all-female compartment. A new conductor for the train approaches her as she boards. His body blocks her view of the door she walks through. Within four seconds, a woman steps backwards out of the train and only a sliver of Geravand’s head is visible as she lies on the floor of the train. Then women pull out Geravand’s limp body and run for help as the train sets off.
However, the Iranian state television report did not include footage from inside the train itself and offered no explanation as to why it was not released. Most carriages in the Tehran subway have multiple surveillance cameras visible to security personnel.
“The refusal to release the footage only reinforces doubts about the official account,” said the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights.
Paramedics took Geravand to Fajr Hospital, located at an Iranian air base and one of the closest medical facilities to the station. According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, security forces have detained a journalist from the Shargh newspaper since her injury, who was taken to hospital. Shargh, a reformist newspaper, was also instrumental in reporting Amini’s death.
Geravand’s injury has already attracted international attention, but the Iranian government has tried to dismiss it. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote online: “Once again a young woman is fighting for her life in #Iran. Just because she showed her hair on the subway. It’s unbearable.”
U.S. deputy special envoy for Iran Abram Paley also wrote that he was “shocked and concerned by reports that Iran’s so-called moral police attacked 16-year-old Armita Geravand.”
Iranian authorities are likely concerned that this incident could escalate into public anger, as in the case of Amini. Despite increasing repression, women continue to ignore the hijab law. This includes, as Shargh describes it, the Tehran city government hiring about 400 people as “hijab guards” to issue verbal warnings, prevent undetected women from entering subway cars and hand them over to police.