Akhtar Makoii
Sun, November 3, 2024
A female student at a university in Tehran stripped to her underwear in a defiant act of protest on Saturday
A female student at a university in Tehran stripped to her underwear in an act of protest after being harassed by campus security officers over her hijab.
Videos circulating widely on social media show the unidentified student sitting outside the campus in her underwear while the security guards surrounded her.
Another video shows her walking around the campus in her bra and knickers while stunned fellow students film her on their mobile phones.
Her act of resistance began after a confrontation inside Azad University’s science and research centre on Saturday, when security forces physically attacked the student because she was not wearing a headscarf.
In response to having her clothes torn, she chose to remove her remaining garments as a protest, according to Iranian student social media news channel, the Amir Kabir newsletter and witnesses who spoke to The Telegraph.
Multiple witnesses confirmed her subsequent detention by the authorities. Video footage showed security officers abducting her from the campus.
Officers forcibly detain student
About 10 security guards were captured on video forcibly bundling the young woman into a vehicle. The footage showed a group of officers overwhelming her before she was detained.
“Oh God, how many of them are attacking just one person?” one onlooker was heard saying. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” another said.
“Around noon, near the entrance of the faculty, I saw a girl being grabbed and forcibly taken by security forces,” one witness told The Telegraph from Tehran.
“She wasn’t wearing a headscarf. Then they reached the security building near the entrance, where a male and a female security guard grabbed her and tried to take her into the office with force.
“She resisted, and her hoodie was torn off her body, it made her very angry and she took off the rest of her clothes.
“She angrily yelled at them and took off her trousers - she sat outside the campus for a few minutes and the officer became more aggressive.
“I couldn’t see much but, a few minutes after she started walking, several plain-clothes officers ambushed her and forced her into a car.”
Student media outlets reported that she suffered injuries during the arrest, including severe head trauma after being struck against a vehicle. Witnesses said traces of blood were visible at the scene.
#Girl of Science and Research
The footage has been widely shared in Iran and the student has already become a powerful symbol of resistance, drawing nationwide attention under the hashtag: “Girl of Science and Research.”
“If courage had a face,” one user posted on X with the girl’s picture. “That brave girl is my leader,” another user wrote.
Amir Mahjoub, the director of public relations at the university, said that she was transferred to a “police station” and claimed that she is under “severe mental stress and suffering from psychological disorders”.
The Farhikhtegan newspaper, affiliated with the university, also claimed, citing “official and unofficial sources” that the student has “severe psychological and mental issues”.
The report added that, after being handed over to the police by university security staff, she has been hospitalised in a psychiatric facility.
A female student at a university in Tehran stripped to her underwear in a defiant act of protest on Saturday
Whereabouts and condition unknown
There has been no further information about her whereabouts or condition.
Amnesty International has urged Iranian authorities to release the girl “immediately and unconditionally”.
It is not the first time that officials and media affiliated with the Islamic Republic have accused protesters of “mental disorders” and forcibly placed them in psychiatric institutions. The protest echoes earlier acts of civil disobedience, notably that of Vida Movahed, known as “the Girl of Enghelab Street”.
That show of defiance gained international attention in 2017 when a woman removed her headscarf and held it aloft on the tip of a stick while standing to protest against the mandatory hijab.
Observers have drawn parallels between these demonstrations, viewing them as key moments in Iranian women’s ongoing struggle for personal freedoms.
After the September 2022 death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, and the subsequent protests, Iranian universities have also faced heightened repression and intensified control. The protests led to acts of civil disobedience by Iranian women and girls against the mandatory hijab.
New stricter laws
All women in Iran must conceal their hair with a headscarf and wear loose-fitting trousers under their coats while in public but a growing number of Iranian women have appeared in public without head coverings.
Iranian police and security forces have intensified their enforcement of the rules. A new bill making its way through Iran’s parliament is set to harden the regulations governing how women and men can dress in public, but authorities have started enforcing it before its formal approval.
Article 50 of the bill says anyone found “naked, semi-naked, or wearing clothing deemed improper in public” will be immediately arrested and handed over to judicial authorities.
The bill also implements gender segregation across a wide range of settings, including universities, hospitals, educational and administrative centres, parks and tourist sites.
People found in breach of the new rules also face a ban on leaving the country and using social media for a period of six months to two years.
“These girls will one day bring down Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s future belongs to free women, not the mullahs,” a Tehran student told The Telegraph.
“She’ll be remembered as a hero by many women,” she said of the girl who protested on Saturday. “After this regime falls, her picture will be everywhere in Iran, like Mahsa Amin’s and many more.”
Iran arrests female student who stripped to protest harassment
Shweta Sharma
Sun, November 3, 2024
Iranian student protest assault by secuirty forces at university (Screengrab/AmnestyIran)
An Iranian woman was arrested after reportedly stripping down to her undergarments to protest an alleged assault by security forces for not following strict hijab laws.
The woman was reportedly assaulted, and her clothes were torn inside Tehran’s Azad University of Science and Research on Saturday for not following strict hijab rules, Iran International reported.
A widely circulated video on social media shows a woman sitting and walking around the university campus in her undergarments.
Another video shows her being detained by security forces and forcibly taken into a car.
Islamic Azad University confirmed her arrest on X without giving any reason.
“Following an indecent act by a student at the Science and Research Branch of the university, campus security intervened and handed the individual over to law enforcement authorities,” Amir Mahjoub, director general of public relations at Islamic Azad University, wrote on X.
“The motives and underlying reasons for the student’s actions are currently under investigation.”
The student sustained injuries after being physically assaulted during her arrest, Iran International reported, citing a newsletter by the student group Amir Kabir Newsletter.
It said the student was “disrobed after being harassed for not wearing a headscarf and having her clothing torn by security forces”.
“Blood stains from the student were reportedly seen on the car’s tyres,” the newsletter said, adding that her head was struck either by a car door or a pillar which caused heavy bleeding.
Amnesty International’s Iran unit called on the Iranian authorities to “immediately and unconditionally” release the student who was violently arrested on Saturday.
“Pending her release, authorities must protect her from torture & other ill-treatment & ensure access to family and lawyer. Allegations of beatings and sexual violence against her during arrest need independent & impartial investigations. Those responsible must held to account,” it said in a statement on X.
A growing number of women are defying the strict hijab laws in the country by discarding their veils since the brutal 2022 death of Mahsa Amini.
Twenty-two-year-old Amini died after being detained by the morality police for not wearing her hijab correctly. Her death became a breaking point, sparking unprecedented protests known as “Women, Life, Freedom”, which lasted for three months in the country.
A monthslong security crackdown that followed killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained.
However, media reports indicate that nothing has changed since the protests, and scattered photos and videos have surfaced showing women and young girls being roughed up by officers.
In October 2023, Iranian teenage Armita Geravand was injured in a mysterious incident on Tehran’s metro while not wearing a headscarf. She later died in the hospital after falling into a coma.
In July, activists reported that police opened fire on a woman fleeing a checkpoint to avoid her car being impounded for not wearing the hijab.
The country’s new reformist president Masoud Pezeshkian campaigned on a promise to halt the harassment of women by morality police. But the 85-year-old supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who remains the country’s ultimate authority, has previously said that “unveiling is both religiously forbidden and politically forbidden”.
Female student arrested in Iran after stripping off in public on university campus
Evelyn Ann-Marie Dom
Sat, November 2, 2024
EURONEWS
An Iranian woman has been arrested after she stripped partially naked on a university campus, reportedly in protest against the strict dress code after she was physically harassed by security officers for wearing her hijab incorrectly, according to Amnesty Iran.
Video circulating on social media platform X, filmed by other university students in a classroom overlooking the Tehran Islamic Azad University campus, has attracted a lot of attention online, with many people applauding the woman for her "boldness" and "courage".
No further information has been released about the identity of the individual.
In a post on X, Amnestry Iran pressed for her immediate and unconditional release.
The organisation called for the protection of the woman from "torture and other ill-treatment" pending her release and demanded that she must be granted access to family and a lawyer.
"Allegations of beatings and sexual violence against her during arrest need independent and impartial investigations," Amnesty added that all those found responsible must be held accountable.
The university's public relations director Syed Amir Mahjoub said the security officers turned the student in to the police and denied that there was a physical clash. He added that initial investigations reveal that the woman suffers from a psychological disorder and was under severe distress.
Earlier, some news sources reported the women was arrested by intelligence agents and transferred to an undisclosed location.
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