The female university student who stripped to her underwear in defiance is reportedly admitted to a psychiatric unit in Iran and human rights groups fear that she might be withstanding torture at the facility.
The woman, named Ahoo Daryaei on social media, has been declared mentally unfit and a “troubled individual” by the Iranian government after a video of her walking around half-naked at the Islamic Azad University in Tehran became viral.
The woman was detained by security guards at the university. A university spokesperson, Amir Mahjob, said on X on Saturday “At the police station, … it was found that she was under severe mental pressure and had a mental disorder.”
Tortured at mental institution
Government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said that Daryaei had been transferred to a treatment centre after her detention, sparing details of the facility’s location.
Amnesty International on Friday said that it has evidence to prove that prisoners are subjected to electric shocks, torture, beatings and chemical substances when they are arrested under the pretext of mental instability.
The female student, who has not been formally identified yet, was reportedly protesting after she was physically assaulted by campus security guards at the university for not complying with its dress codes.
Terming her transfer to an unknown mental institution “kidnapping”, the Center for Human Rights in Iran, said, “Iranian authorities systematically use involuntary psychiatric hospitalisation as a tool to suppress dissent, branding protesters as mentally unstable to undermine their credibility.”
‘We don’t view it under a security lens’
Mohajerani said that the Iranian government is “not viewing this issue under a security lens, we are rather looking at it with a social lens and seek to solve the problems of this student as a troubled individual.”
“It is yet too soon to speak of this student’s return to university. According to a video published by her husband, she needs treatment and that needs to be completed before taking the next steps,” Mohajerani added on the government’s website.
Source: FirstPost.com