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State Media: Iranian Teen Armita Geravand Is 'Brain Dead'


In this image from surveillance video aired by Iranian state television, women pull 16-year-old Armita Geravand from a train car on the Tehran metro, in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 1, 2023.
In this image from surveillance video aired by Iranian state television, women pull 16-year-old Armita Geravand from a train car on the Tehran metro, in Tehran, Iran, Oct. 1, 2023.

A teenage Iranian girl, who fell into a coma earlier this month following an alleged encounter with officers over violating the country's hijab law, is said to be "brain dead," Iranian state media reported Sunday.

Right groups such as Kurdish-Iranian Hengaw were the first to make Armita Geravand's hospitalization public, publishing photos of the 16-year-old girl on social media that showed her unconscious with a respiratory tube and bandage over her head, visibly on life support. Reuters could not verify the pictures.

"Follow-ups on the latest health condition of Geravand indicate that her condition of being brain dead seems certain despite the efforts of the medical staff," state media reported.

There have been concerns by rights advocates that Geravand might face the same fate as Mahsa Amini, whose death in the custody of Iran’s morality police last year sparked months of nationwide anti-government protests that posed one of the boldest challenges to Iran's clerical rulers.

Iran has denied that Geravand was hurt after a confrontation on Oct. 1 with officers enforcing the mandatory Islamic dress code in the Tehran metro.

Iran's theocratic establishment has imposed restrictions on women's dress since a popular revolution deposed the secular and Western-backed Shah in 1979. Women are required by law to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes.

Violators face public rebuke, fines or arrest. Defying the strict Islamic dress code, more women have been appearing unveiled in public places such as malls, restaurants and shops across the country since Amini's death.

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    Reuters

    Reuters is a news agency founded in 1851 and owned by the Thomson Reuters Corporation based in Toronto, Canada. One of the world's largest wire services, it provides financial news as well as international coverage in over 16 languages to more than 1000 newspapers and 750 broadcasters around the globe.

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