According to local and state media reports, there was an incident in Tehran’s metro resulting in severe head trauma for a sixteen-year-old girl named Armita Geravand. She was hospitalized and subsequently fell into a coma. In response, the clerical regime has heightened security measures and is closely monitoring the situation. Armita Geravand is reportedly being treated at Fajr military hospital, with stringent access controls in place.
In less than 48 hours, Armita’s parents were brought on state TV to offer soothing words and thank the state-run hospital for the treatment of their daughter, and an unknown female individual standing next to Armita’s mother was shown warning the public against rumors.
A reporter from the state-run Sharq newspaper was immediately arrested when she attempted to get an exclusive interview with the victim’s parents. She was released once she learned it the hard way that she could not pursue her ambitious journalism aspirations at the cost of “national security.”
Henceforth, state media has been circulating clichéd and identical reports about the incident, an indication that the “editorial narratives” are systematically controlled and directed by the Ministry of Guidance and Culture. A highly manipulated video from the Tehran metro’s CCTV camera was made public.
All indications point to the fact that the clerical regime is on full alert, trying to prevent the repetition of the events that led to the 2022 nationwide uprising. An event that unrooted the clerical regime’s mirage of stability and soundness.
On October 4, Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, criticized the regime’s anxious response in managing a state-sanctioned account of an incident involving a teenage girl. Mrs. Rajavi urged the United Nations to step in and prevent the regime from distorting the truth, an act that is exacting a toll on the lives and prospects of an entire nation.
I urgently call upon Ms. Reem Alsalem, @UNSRVAW to promptly inquire about Armita's condition and dispatch a representative to visit the oppressed and innocent girl before it becomes too late. It is crucial to investigate her situation thoroughly. #Iran
— Maryam Rajavi (@Maryam_Rajavi) October 4, 2023
On September 13, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-young girl from Saqqez who was visiting her family in Tehran, was rounded up by the “morality police” patrol and soon after she was delivered at a “discipline center” she fell unconscious and went into a coma. Three days later, she passed away in Tehran’s Kasra Hospital, and once the news made rounds, an entire nation burst into rage to express what it felt of four decades-long oppression, discrimination, and tyranny.
Since the 1990s, multiple provincial and nationwide uprisings have revisited Iran, and every time the masses managed to overcome the stifling atmosphere of intimidation, they have called for the entire regime to be ousted. But unlike all previous attempts of revolt and insurrection, the 2022 uprising differed significantly in geographic expansion, endurance, and demographics.
In contrast to prior uprisings, during which the Supreme Leader of the regime could unite fractured rival factions through public appearances and mobilize the extensive security apparatus, the 2022 uprising displayed a departure from this pattern. Despite six fervent speeches by Ali Khamenei, numerous pro-regime rallies, and months of arrests and killings, the regime proved ineffective in quelling an unyielding society.
On October 19, upon acquiring highly classified documents from inside the regime, the NCRI Security and Counterterrorism Committee exposed the IRGC commander-in-chief’s directives on how to deal with the uprising. The documents showed how Hossein Salami explained the IRGC’s modus operandi about disgruntled security personnel, his orders to refrain from using lethal weapons, and opting for measures to boost the morale of commanders of security bases and Basij units.
Despite Khamenei’s repeated calls, which were extensively magnified by state media and military figures, urging the regime’s senior leaders to unify and demonstrate support for his leadership, these appeals were disregarded. On the contrary, an increasing number of state officials, irrespective of their past political inclinations, began openly criticizing the regime. The act of turning away from Khamenei gained traction and became a prevalent sentiment.
It is true that the clerical regime had obtained mastery in surviving through multiple domestic and international crises, but its latest attempts to get Iran’s vibrant nation under control speak volumes of its ailing and failing capacity. Resorting to a nationwide campaign of poison attacks on girls’ schools and purging professors and dissident students prior to school reopening also did little to intimidate the rebellious generation.
A regime that once survived and thrived by executing hundreds of teenager and young dissidents every night is now desperately on full alert and a state-stage struggle is underway to keep a sixteen-year-young on life support. Khamenei, who continues to assert himself as the Middle East’s paramount power and boasts about confronting the great Satan, is compelled to implore his former allies that any concession or yielding to societal demands will inevitably culminate in the overthrow of his entire regime.
Hence, as the clerical regime cannot help itself but keep its multifaceted security apparatus on the streets, its entire stability hinges on the survival of every individual teenager brave enough to challenge its nonsensical regulations.