Iranian female student who stripped in public is ‘troubled’, says government

DUBAI (Reuters) – A female student who stripped to her underwear at an Iranian university does not represent a security issue but is a “troubled individual” who is receiving treatment, a government spokesperson said.

The young woman undressed on Saturday at the Islamic Azad University in Tehran, an act that was widely perceived on social media as a protest against Iran’s strict Islamic dress code.

“Instead of 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,” government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani said on Tuesday in the first official reaction to the event.

She said that the young woman, named as Ahoo Daryaei on social media, had been transferred from a police station to a treatment centre, but did not say what treatment she would receive.

Reuters could not identify the young woman independently.

“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.

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.”

Growing numbers of Iranian women have defied authorities by discarding their veils after nationwide protests that followed the death in September 2022 of a young Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini. She died while in the custody of the morality police for allegedly violating hijab rules. Security forces violently put down the revolt.

Amnesty International said on X a young woman was “violently arrested on 2 Nov after she removed her clothes in protest against abusive enforcement of compulsory veiling by security officials at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University” and called for her immediate release.

On Monday, the semi-official, hardline Tasnim news agency said those reacting on social media were “the same anti-Iran movement which jumped on the Mahsa Amini affair in 2022”.

The non-official Khabaronline website reported that the government spokesperson said the young woman was not facing any criminal charges.

(Reporting by Dubai Newsroom; Editing by Ros Russell)