The official Iranian news agency IRNA announced this Saturday the death of the young Armita Geravand, the teenager hospitalized since the beginning of this month after suffering an alleged attack in the Tehran subway at the hands of agents of the 'Moral Police' for not wearing the veil.
“Unfortunately, the brain damage caused him to go into a coma and he died a few minutes ago,” IRNA said.. The state agency stated that the young woman received “extensive medical treatment during her 28 days of hospitalization in a special care unit.”
The official version, released by IRNA, indicates, on the other hand, that the young woman suffered a sudden drop in tension while waiting on the platform of the Shohada metro station in the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Security images released by IRNA show how Garavand and two friends enter one of the capital's metro cars and then two of them leave carrying the third, a video that the authorities have used to demonstrate that no attack occurred.
Amnesty International, however, stated that the video has been manipulated with frame acceleration in four sections and there are gaps of more than three minutes in the recording made public.
The Kurdish human rights organization Hengaw, based in Oslo, has reported that the young woman was attacked for not wearing the Islamic veil, mandatory in the country since 1983.
Geravand had been brain dead for several days, official Iranian media also reported last weekend, and there was no hope of recovery.
As part of the event, a journalist from the Shargh newspaper sent to the scene to cover the events was detained, although she was later released.
The case is similar to that of the young Mahsa Amini, who died a little over a year ago after being detained by the so-called morality police for not wearing the Islamic veil properly, a death that the authorities attributed to natural causes.
His death sparked strong protests that for months called for the end of the Islamic Republic and only disappeared after a repression that caused 500 deaths, the arrest of at least 22,000 people and in which seven protesters were executed, one of them in public.
The first anniversary of Amini's death was commemorated on September 16 amid strong repression and a huge deployment of security forces, and only timid protests took place.
In recent months, the Iranian government has been trying to reimpose the use of the veil, with the presence of patrols in the streets, the denial of services and the approval of a law that toughens punishments for not covering one's hair.