The Case of Armita Geravand; Hijab Patrols Commit Another Murder
Born on April 2, 2006, Armita Geravand was a vibrant young woman, excelling both in athletics, as a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo, and as a talented painter. Her life was full of promise and potential.
Armita’s life took a tragic turn in October, and her story sheds light on the oppressive mandates imposed by the Iranian regime, particularly the compulsory veil enforced on women and girls.
The case of Armita Geravand is both tragic and powerful, and it’s essential to bring her story to the forefront.
As you just mentioned, Armita was a youthful, energetic, and talented young woman who was going to school with her friends on Sunday, October 1. Their rendez vous was at 7 a.m. at the metro station. Armita and her friends were walking without covering their hair.
Now, when they boarded the train, something happened and they walked back out carrying Armita with them, as she was bleeding from her head. She slipped into a coma and the regime announced her brain death after 28 days.
The official narrative is that she experienced a sudden drop in blood pressure because she had skipped breakfast. Consequently, she collapsed inside the train, hitting her head on a sharp iron edge.
But how could that happen? She was with her friends. I read that she was the one in between. Even if she fainted, her friends could have grabbed her and prevented her from experiencing such a strong impact. Even some doctors have stated that a drop in blood pressure could not have led to such a sudden collapse and severe trauma.
The case of Armita Geravand – Why was it shrouded in secrecy?
Why did the intelligence services besiege the hospital, tightly restricting access to Armita and her family? Why did they detain the journalist who went to the hospital to prepare a report?
That’s why the Iranian public opinion never believed the official scenario in the case of Armita Geravand.
A few days after the incident, the details of which were not clear at all, two eyewitnesses leaked information to the British daily, The Guardian. They said there was a verbal exchange between a Hijab patrol and Armita on the train. She told Armita to cover her hair. Armita said, do I tell you to remove your Hijab? Why do you demand such a thing from me? Then the guidance patrol pushed her so vehemently that Armita’s head hit a sharp edge.
I think this story makes more sense, especially given the heavy security presence at the hospital that restricted access to Armita even by her parents. I heard that her mother was arrested for attempting to sneak into the ICU to see her daughter.
That’s right. There are strong speculations that Armita was brain-dead from the outset. Otherwise, why did the authorities prevent her parents from seeing her? Especially since the authorities did not take any measures, like surgery or something. All they did was connect her to medical devices monitoring her vital signs.
It’s just that they didn’t want to announce her death, fearing the eruption of another massive uprising like what happened last year in the case of Mahsa Amini.
The case of Armita Geravand – the regime’s cover-up
Please tell us how the regime tried to conceal its role in the killing of another girl by Hijab patrols, for not observing the mandatory Hijab.
Well, the first step, as you mentioned, was to encircle the hospital and prevent access to Armita by reporters or any other individual. They also evacuated an entire ward to keep her isolated.
When a picture of Armita in the ICU room was leaked out, they moved her to another room and changed all the medical team and staff.
In the meantime, they prepared footage from the closed circuit cameras in different areas of the metro station and even the entrance, but not from inside the train where the incident happened. The footage lacked some 100 seconds, which probably showed the confrontation with the Hijab patrols.
The authorities also briefed Armita’s parents and forced them to have an interview repeating the official scenario.
Again, the parents had another interview, where they said it wasn’t true that they didn’t have access to Armita. After a few days, her friends were interviewed by the official news agency and repeated the exact same story.
The statement by Amnesty International said it had “serious concerns” that Geravand’s family and friends had been “forced to appear in propaganda videos and reiterate the state narrative under duress and threats of reprisals.”
The case of Armita Geravand – The conflicting reports on her condition
Now, I’d like to ask you about the conflicting reports in the case of Armita Geravand. Once they said her vital signs had deteriorated, and the medical team said she was brain dead. Then there were denials of this by her relatives … Until the 28th of October, when the official news agency announced that she had died.
In a nutshell, this was part of the regime’s plan. As I mentioned earlier, Armita was most probably dead, if not on the first day, in the first few days, just like Mahsa Amini who died after three days.
But the regime did not dare to announce the news. So they kept her connected to the medical devices and waited for some ten days.
Finally, they picked a weekend to announce her death when all international news agencies work with limited staff and people are on vacation, and on this specific day, the global attention was turned to death and destruction in the Middle East.
