PARIS: 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 (Oct 3), blaming the Islamic republic's notorious morality police.
The Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw said the teenager, named as Armita Garawand, had been badly injured in a confrontation on the Tehran metro with female police officers.
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.
Iranian authorities remain on high alert for any upsurge of social tension just over a year after the death in custody of 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.
Hengaw said that Garawand was left with severe injuries after being apprehended and physically attacked 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 organisation later published a picture it said was of Garawand in her hospital bed, showing her head and neck heavily bandaged and attached to a feeding tube. "Her state of consciousness is unchanged," it added.
Her parents gave an interview to Iranian state media at the hospital but "in the presence of high-ranking security officers" and "under considerable pressure", Hengaw said.