Iranian student who stripped naked transferred to specialist care centre

Photo: UGC Agence France-Presse This image from a UGC video published on November 2, 2024 and widely shared on social media shows a student in her underwear in front of Tehran's Islamic Azad University.

Agence France-Presse in Paris

Posted at 2:36 p.m.

• Middle East

The Iranian student arrested Saturday in Tehran after undressing in public has been “transferred to a specialized care center,” the Iranian embassy in Paris announced in a statement Wednesday.

“The student in question suffers from psychological fragility and was transferred by ambulance from the social emergency services to a specialized care center,” according to the statement, which did not specify the name of the establishment.

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Earlier in the day, Iran’s Minister of Science, Research and Technology, Hossein Simaei, had described the young woman’s behavior as “immoral,” without giving any indication of her fate.

This student at the prestigious Azad University in Tehran was arrested on Saturday after stripping to her underwear, in order to protest, according to activist groups who revealed the case, against harassment by security agents who accused her of not respecting the strict Islamic dress code.

In videos that have gone viral, she is seen walking slowly in front of the university in her panties and bra, before being brutally taken away in a car by men in plain clothes.

The NGO Amnesty International had reported on X on Tuesday evening “alarming information” about the student being transferred to a psychiatric hospital and recalled that “the Iranian authorities equate the rejection of the compulsory veil with a ‘mental disorder’ requiring ‘treatment’”.

The student, a mother of two and separated from her husband, “once recovered, will resume her studies at the university” if the institution accepts her, the embassy statement added, stressing that it was “a private matter.”

Refuting any mental disorder, the United States-based activist Masih Alinejad described on X a student “not only sane, but also a courageous woman full of joy and vitality,” citing sources who know her.

Since the revelation of the affair, the young woman has been erected as a new symbol of the women’s struggle in Iran.

The head of French diplomacy Jean-Noël Barrot assured that Paris was “closely following” her case.

Islamic law in Iran imposes a very strict dress code on women, who are required to wear headscarves and loose clothing that conceals their curves.

Iranian women are behind unprecedented protests in the country following the death of young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in September 2022, arrested for not respecting this code.

The “Women, Life, Freedom” movement was massively repressed, with at least 551 deaths and thousands of people arrested, according to NGOs.