US deplores death of Iranian Kurdish girl after metro incident

WASHINGTON: The United States on Sunday deplored the death a day earlier of a young Iranian girl, Armita Garawand, who had lingered in a coma after a controversial incident in Tehran’s metro.

“I am deeply saddened to learn that Amita Geravand has died after being beaten by Iran’s morality police for not wearing a hijab in public,” US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said on X, the former Twitter, using a variant spelling of her name.

“Iran’s state sponsored violence against its own people is appalling and underscores the fragility of the regime.” Garawand, a 17-year-old from Iran’s Kurdish region, had been in a coma in Tehran’s Fajr hospital since October 1 after losing consciousness in the city’s metro. She was declared brain-dead a week ago.

The circumstances surrounding the incident were deeply disputed. A surveillance video widely circulated on social media showed Garawand, who was not wearing a veil, being carried from the metro after losing consciousness. But Kurdish-focused rights group Hengaw said she had been critically wounded in a confrontation with members of Iran’s so-called morality police, who enforce a strict dress code requiring women to wear veils in public.

The authorities, however, said Garawand had fallen and injured her head after suffering a sudden drop in blood pressure. They denied that any “physical or verbal altercations” had taken place.

Garawand’s death came just over a year after the death of Mahsa Amini, another young Iranian Kurd, following her arrest by the morality police for allegedly breaching the dress code. That incident sparked mass protests across the Islamic republic.