Iranian teen Armita Garawand likely ‘brain dead’ after train collapse

The condition of Armita Garawand, 16, was first reported on October 3 by a Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw, which said she had been critically wounded during an incident on the metro.

It came just over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini, also a Kurdish Iranian woman, for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict dress code for women in an incident that sparked mass protests across the Islamic republic.

On Sunday, the state-affiliated Borna news agency said it “seems certain” that Garawand was “brain dead”. It had reported on October 11 that her condition had deteriorated.

According to state news agency IRNA, Garawand fainted because of low blood pressure.

But the Hengaw rights group said she had been hurt in a confrontation with female police officers on the metro for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code for women.

Garawand lives in Tehran but comes from Kermanshah, a city some 500 kilometres from the Iranian capital, in Kurdish-populated western Iran.

The teenager, who was with friends and apparently not wearing a headscarf, is said to have been pushed into a metro carriage by female police agents.

Garawand’s condition sparked interest in the West, with both Germany and the United States raising concerns about the case after a purported video of the incident circulated on social media.

Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights had urged “an independent international investigation … to establish the details” of the incident, and accused Tehran of “a long history of distorting facts and concealing evidence of their crimes”.

“The Islamic republic continues its harassment and repression of women under the guise of fighting mandatory hijab violations,” said the group’s director, Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam.

The head of the Tehran metro has denied there was any verbal or physical altercation between the teenager and passengers or staff.