According to accounts, a female student was detained by Iranian officials on Saturday after she demonstrated against harassment outside her institution by stripping down to her pants.

According to many news agencies and social media channels outside of Iran, the unnamed woman was abused by members of the Basij paramilitary group inside Tehran’s esteemed Islamic Azad University, where they tore her clothing and hijab.

Videos shared on social media revealed that she then stripped off her clothing in protest, sitting outside the institution in only her panties before boldly crossing the street to the surprise of onlookers.

Iranian women are required to wear loose-fitting clothing and a hijab while they are in public.

Originally shared via the Iranian student social media platform Amir Kabir newsletter, the video was thereafter featured by a number of Persian-language publications, such as Amnesty International and the Hengaw rights organisation and Iran Wire news website.

The video seemed to have been captured by bystanders in a nearby structure. In a another video, she was seen being loaded into a car by unclothed males and taken to an unknown place.

“Scream from the heart”

According to the Amir Kabir weekly, she was assaulted while being arrested.

“The university student who was violently arrested after taking off her clothes in protest of security officials’ abusive enforcement of mandatory veiling must be released immediately and unconditionally by Iran’s authorities,” Amnesty International stated.

“Pending her release, authorities must protect her from torture and other ill-treatment and ensure access to family and lawyer,” the London-based rights organisation, which has documented claims of mistreatment against women in Iranian jails in previous years, continued.

It further stated that “independent and impartial investigations are required into allegations of beatings and sexual violence against her during arrest.”

The event was reported by Iran’s hardline Fars news agency, which also released a photo of the student that was extensively blacked out.

It said that despite being told by security personnel to adhere to the dress code, the student “stripped” after wearing “inappropriate clothes” in class.

Citing “witnesses,” it claimed that the security officers had a “calm” conversation with the teenager and refuted claims that they had acted aggressively.

Following the murder of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian Kurdish woman who had been detained for allegedly violating the dress code, riots broke out almost countrywide in 2022.

A crackdown that left 551 demonstrators dead and hundreds detained put an end to the demonstrations, in which women broke taboos by taking off their headscarves and sometimes even burning them.

In an Instagram post endorsing the student, actress Katayoun Riahi, who supported the demonstrations, stated, “We must not leave each other to stand alone.”

In a post on X, well-known Iranian activist Hossein Ronaghi, who was imprisoned during the demonstrations, praised the student’s “bravery” and called her gesture a “cry from the bottom of the heart against the oppression that has taken the life out of people, especially women.”