A 17-year-old girl who was reportedly hit from behind by an Iranian security service baton in an anti-hijab demonstration has died after 10 days in a coma.
Arnika Ghaem Maghami can be seen in these images lying on a hospital bed after she reportedly received several blows to the head from security forces during the protest.
The Iranian Human Rights Center said she had been killed by police in a statement issued on 23rd October.
Iranian officials had falsely claimed, said the human rights group, that she had been killed by a fall from a fourth-storey building.
The Iranian Human Rights Center said on Sunday that the teenage girl “died yesterday after being hit by a baton from behind and [it] was falsely told that she was thrown from the fourth floor! The security officials deliberately took [her] to the army hospital. […]”
Arnika lapsed into a coma and was brain-dead almost 10 days before finally dying on 22nd October, according to the human rights organisation and independent Iranian media outlets.
The Iranian Human Rights Center also said that the Iranian security forces deliberately transferred her to an army hospital to keep the truth hidden.
Protests have been gripping Iran since the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, from Saqqez, Kurdistan Province, who was on a visit to Tehran when she was arrested by morality police and accused of violating hijab rules on 13th September.
She was allegedly beaten while in custody and spent the following days in a coma in the hospital before succumbing in the ICU on 16th September.
The clinic where she was treated said in a now-deleted social media post that she had been admitted brain-dead.
Alleged medical scans of her skull leaked by hackers showed that she had suffered bone fractures, haemorrhages, and brain oedema.
Anti-regime media are claiming that Mahsa’s medical records showing her history of heart disease were faked by the Iranian government.
The protests her death sparked are ongoing and, according to the non-profit Iran Human Rights, at least 201 people, including 28 children, have been killed so far, according to its latest figures released on 12th October.
