An Iranian girl aged 16 has been left in a coma and is being treated in hospital under heavy security after an assault on the Tehran subway, a rights group said on Tuesday.
The Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw said the teenager, named as Armita Garawand, had been badly injured in a run-in on the Tehran metro with female morality police officers.
Video Shows Garawand Being Pullet Out of Metro
This has already been denied by the Iranian authorities, who say that the girl "fainted" due to low blood pressure and that there was no involvement of the security forces.
Video footage being circulated on social media appears to show the teen being pulled out of the metro. The user who posted the video claims she was assaulted for not wearing a hijab.
Hengaw said that Garawand was left with severe injuries after being apprehended by agents of the so-called morality police at the Shohada metro station in Tehran on Sunday.
It said she was being treated under tight security at Tehran's Fajr hospital and "there are currently no visits allowed for the victim, not even from her family." The IranWire news site, based outside Iran, cited a source as saying she had sustained a "head injury" after being pushed by the officers.
Mahsa Amini's Death
The incident comes just over a year after the death in custody of 21-year-old Mahsa Amini who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rules for women.
Her death sparked several months of protests that rattled Iran's clerical leadership and only dwindled in the face of a crackdown that according to activists has seen thousands arrested and hundreds killed.
