Hospitalised Iranian teen likely ‘brain dead’: media

TEHRAN: An Iranian teen who was left in a coma after an alleged assault on the Tehran metro by female police officers is likely to be brain dead, Iranian media reported on Sunday.

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 (310 miles) from the Iranian capital, in Kurdish-populated western Iran.