Oct. 23, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Armita Geravand, the Iranian girl who was dragged out of a subway car unconscious shortly after entering with her hair uncovered, has been pronounced brain dead, Iran\u2019s state-owned media reported on Sunday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since her collapse on Oct. 1, she has been in a coma, but on Sunday, doctors said that they were not hopeful she would be saved, according to Tasnim News, a semiofficial agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cUnfortunately, her health condition is not promising, and, despite the efforts of the medical staff, the brain death of Armita Geravand seems certain,\u201d Tasnim reported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Little is known about what happened to 16-year-old Ms. Geravand, but her case has evoked similarities with that of Mahsa Amini, who died last year in the custody of the morality police<\/a> after being accused of violating Iran\u2019s dress code, prompting a nationwide wave of anti-government protests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Two journalists, Niloufar Hamedi and Elaheh Mohammadi, who covered Ms. Amini\u2019s case, were sentenced on Sunday to seven and six years in prison for \u201ccooperating with the \u2018hostile\u2019 government of America,\u201d according to the semiofficial Fars News Agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Geravand\u2019s case has also given rise to accusations that she was harmed by agents enforcing the hijab rules.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mohammad Roozbehani, whose brother was shot during the protests in 2022, posted on social media two pictures of Ms. Geravand and Ms. Amini intubated in their hospital beds<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey say that if you see the same tree twice in the forest, it means you are lost,\u201d he wrote on Oct. 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Monday, pictures on the BBC\u2019s Farsi Instagram account showed posters with Ms. Geravand\u2019s image hanging on the walls of the university of Tehran with the words \u2014 \u201cShout her name.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSweet Armita! Brave and beautiful girl of my land, they killed you, took your frail body hostage,\u201d Fatemeh Heidari, whose brother was shot in last year\u2019s protests, wrote on X<\/a>, the platform formerly known as Twitter, on Monday. (Her brother, Javad Heidari<\/a>, was one of about 500 people killed in the government\u2019s crackdown on the uprisings \u2014 the most serious challenge to Iran\u2019s clerical rule since its beginning in 1979.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ms. Heidari accused the government of delaying the announcement of Ms. Geravand\u2019s brain death \u201cso that you are lost in the noise of wars.\u201d But, she added, \u201cwe are your voice.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The circumstances of Ms. Geravand\u2019s collapse remain murky. Security camera footage broadcast by Iran\u2019s state television showed<\/a> that she entered the subway on her way to school, her short black hair uncovered, and that she was carried out only minutes later, but it\u2019s unclear what happened inside the train. Iran\u2019s authorities have not released videos from inside the subway car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n People familiar with the episode told Farzad Seifikaran, a journalist with Radio Zamaneh, that Ms. Geravand \u2014 an art student at a vocational art and design high school \u2014 and two of her friends\u00a0argued with officers enforcing the dress code<\/a>. They told the journalist that one officer pushed Ms. Geravand, who fell, hit her head on a metal object, and suffered cerebral hemorrhaging, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The government said that Ms. Geravand collapsed because she had skipped breakfast and her blood sugar dropped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On Sunday, Tasnim News accused the opposition media of attempting to manipulate reports of the incident. \u201cThe desperate attempt of the opposition media to turn this story upside down shows the all-around design of the opponents and enemies of people\u2019s security and social order to affect the peace of the country,\u201d they wrote. \u201cBut they failed.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2023\/10\/23\/multimedia\/23IRAN-TEENAGER-02-kmtq\/23IRAN-TEENAGER-02-kmtq-articleLarge.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp&disable=upscale\")