the student Ahou Daryaei in a psychiatric hospital? Tehran has made it a habit

IRAN – Questioning the mental health of opponents to discredit their cause. What will become of Ahou Daryaei, the Iranian student arrested after undressing in public on Saturday in front of Azad University in Tehran? Concern is growing over his fate and activists fear a possible transfer to a psychiatric hospital. A sadly usual maneuver on the part of the Iranian regime.

According to the activist groups who revealed the affair, cited by AFP, Ahou Daryaei undressed in protest after being harassed by university agents who believed she was not respecting the strict Islamic dress code. OBLIGATORY. Islamic law in Iran imposes a very strict dress code on women, who are required to wear headscarves and loose clothing that conceals their shapes.

This student was quickly established as a new symbolic figure in the fight for women's rights in Iran.

The Iranian regime speaks of “ mental disorders »

On the side of the Iranian regime, the version of the facts is not the same. Quoted by AFP, the Iranian agency Fars assured that the student was wearing clothes “inappropriate” in class and was “get out” after being warned “calmly” by security officers. According to Azad University spokesperson quoted by conservative media, the student was handed over to the police by security officers due to misconduct « immoral ».

In an unusual statement, the Iranian embassy in France assured that “this student suffered from certain family problems and a fragile psychological condition” and asserted that “signs of abnormal behavior had already been observed by those around him”. Azad University reported that“she was under strong psychological pressure and suffered from mental disorders”adding that she was separated from her husband and mother of two children.

The media IranWirebased abroad, indicated for its part that Ahou Daryaei was a French language student at university and had never shown signs of psychological disorders.

According to the Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI, based in New York), the young woman was “forcibly transferred to a psychiatric hospital”without further information. Information confirmed by the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Iranian lawyer Shirin Ebadi.

Psychiatric hospitalization to undermine the credibility of opponents

“Making opponents sick is a proven method of repression”recalled Shirin Ebadi, assimilating this strategy to « torture ». “Iranian authorities systematically use involuntary psychiatric hospitalization as a means of suppressing dissent and undermining the credibility of opponents”said the executive director of CHRI, Hadi Ghaemi, in a press release.

The organization cites several cases, such as that of actress Afsaneh Bayegan and two other actresses who had been tried “mentally ill” by a Tehran court in July 2023 after defying Islamic laws on compulsory veiling.

Or that of Kurdish rapper Saman Yasin, arrested during the movement's demonstrations “Woman Life Freedom” and forcibly hospitalized in a psychiatric facility in July 2023.

And « admission of failure » of the diet

In recent years, the Iranian authorities have increased the number of convictions for “ psychological care », often coupled with prison sentences. France24 gives the example of a court in July 2023 which sentenced a woman for non-respect of the veil to two months in prison and six months of treatment for “contagious psychological disorder that leads to sexual promiscuity”.

And « diagnostic » invented from scratch, among many others, which caused a reaction in the world of psychiatry in Iran. The presidents of four mental health associations have written an open letter to the head of the judiciary Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei. They accused the justice system “to abuse psychiatry” for purposes other than health. “The diagnosis of mental disorders is the responsibility of a psychiatrist, not a judge” they denounced.

For Azadeh Kian, professor of political science at Paris VII Diderot University and specialist in Iran, interviewed by France24, the regime's recourse to this type of practice demonstrates an admission of failure on the part of the authorities, incapable of enforcing the law of the veil. And this despite the severe and cruel repression.

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