It became known what happened to the Iranian woman who undressed in a university courtyard as a sign of protest

The incident occurred when Daryaei's hijab accidentally slipped from her head as she ascended the steps of Azad Islamic University in Tehran. Absorbed in her phone, the woman initially did not notice, but soon she was surrounded by morality police officers.

According to her friend, the men roughly grabbed Daryaei and began dragging her into a room where female students are punished for violating the dress code. In response to their actions, the woman, a mother of two, voluntarily undressed down to her underwear and walked across the university courtyard, throwing her clothes in front of her with the words: "Well, what are you going to do?"

A video of this moment instantly went viral on social media and caused an international outcry. Human rights organization Amnesty International stated that Daryaei removed her clothes "in protest against the forced imposition of the hijab" and demanded her "immediate and unconditional release." In London, on Parliament Square, activists held a solidarity action in underwear and red cloaks in the style of "The Handmaid's Tale" novel.

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However, as the woman's friend recounted, the reality after her arrest was much harsher than the authorities portrayed. Daryaei was thrown into a police car, where her head was clamped between an officer's knees – the woman almost suffocated and, according to her, thought that her children might be orphaned. To catch her breath, she bit the policewoman's hand.

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At the station, Daryaei was injected with sedatives – on the second attempt, as the first needle broke. She woke up tied hand and foot in a hospital bed, not understanding where she was. For 18 days, she was held under surveillance, periodically given new doses of medication whenever she tried to find out what was happening.

Iranian authorities officially declared Daryaei "sick" and placed her in a psychiatric institution, explaining her actions on the university steps this way. The woman herself claims that she was in her right mind, and the "diagnosis" was an attempt by the regime to disguise a protest against the authorities. According to her friend, the police meanwhile threatened Daryaei's family, including her children, and her ex-husband was forced to publicly confirm the version of mental illness – only after this was the woman untied and released.

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After her release, Daryaei was warned that she would be monitored and her phone would be tapped. The woman was obligated to take antipsychotic medications at her own expense through insurance. When the authorities noticed that the woman was behaving "too normally" – meaning she might not be taking her medication – she was switched to monthly injections of flupentixol, a drug used in the treatment of schizophrenia and administered only under medical supervision.

"The family decided it was better to have this label of mentally ill than to be hanged, imprisoned, or tortured. This is the only possible way now," Daryaei's friend said.

When asked what would happen if she refused the injections, the doctor replied: she would be arrested and tied up again in a psychiatric hospital.

Today, 32-year-old Daryaei is studying textiles at another university. According to her friend, the woman explains her act as a desire to resist humiliation and show that she controls her own body and life:

"This is me. This is my body. This is my life. And if I want to go in a bikini – I will go in a bikini."

Fatemeh Mohajerani, a representative of the Iranian government, at the time denied both the violent nature of the detention and the connection of the incident to the Islamic dress code, stating that "the matter was completely different" and that "such a level of nudity is unacceptable anywhere."

In Iran, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women are obliged to cover their head and neck. Compliance with this rule is monitored by the specially created morality police – Gasht-e Ershad.

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