Iran snaps back at West after criticism over Iranian teen injured on metro
US, UK and German comments anger Tehran, which accuses countries of ‘expressing insincere concern’ about 16-year-old Armita Garawand, said to be in critical condition
TEHRAN — Iran lashed out Thursday at “biased remarks” from Western countries after allegations that a teenage girl was critically wounded in a confrontation with security agents on Tehran’s subway.
The Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw alleged 16-year-old Armita Garawand had been left in a coma since Sunday after an assault by the metro’s female police officers for “what they perceived as non-compliance with the compulsory hijab.”
Iran has denied Garawand was assaulted, with the official news agency IRNA saying the student had fainted due to “a drop in blood pressure” as she tried to board a train.
The reported altercation came little more than a year since the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini sparked months of deadly protests across the Islamic Republic.
On Wednesday, diplomats from the United States and Germany reacted to the incident.
“Once again a young woman in Iran is fighting for her life. Just because she showed her hair on the subway,” German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
Abram Paley, the acting US special envoy on Iran, posted on X that Washington was “shocked and concerned about reports that Iran’s so-called morality police have assaulted” the teenager.
Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani hit back on Thursday.
“Instead of interventionist and biased remarks and expressing insincere concern over Iranian women and girls, you’d better be concerned about US, German and UK healthcare personnel, patients and tackle their situation,” he wrote on X.
Masood Dorosti, managing director of the Tehran subway system, denied there was “any verbal or physical conflict” between Garawand and “passengers or metro staff.”
IRNA later published interviews with two girls who said they were Garawand’s friends and confirmed the account.
“She fell while getting into the carriage… no one pushed her and she didn’t fight with anyone,” said one of the two girls who was only identified as Fatemeh.
On Monday, Iranian journalist Maryam Lotfi was briefly arrested in Tehran after going to a hospital to report on Garawand’s condition, according to Shargh newspaper.
Iranian authorities remain on alert following the one-year anniversary of the September 16, 2022 death of Amini after her arrest near a Tehran subway station for an alleged breach of the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code for women.
