A teenager girl has died weeks after she was mysteriously injured in a metro train in Iran's capital Tehran while not wearing a hijab, according to Iran'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 taken out of the train in visibly unconscious state.
While the circumstances are unclear, exiled Iranian 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 monarchy 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.
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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 information about what took place, but apparently a woman agent pushed her and Armita fell, receiving a severe head injury."
While Iranian state media announced Armita's death on Saturday, activists had reported earlier this week that she had been declared 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 that 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.
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The outrage following Amini's death led to nationwide protests in which women took off hijabs, burnt them, 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 by the Associated Press (AP) separately earlier this month.
Following the reports of Armita's death, AP reported that activists overseas have called for an independent United Nations (UN)-led investigation.
"Activists abroad have alleged Geravand may have been pushed or attacked because she was not wearing the hijab. They demanded an independent investigation by the United Nations' fact-finding mission on Iran, citing the theocracy's use of pressure 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 regime has also brought even tougher hijab 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.
