Iranian Woman Goes Viral for Undressing in Protest Over Her Treatment

In November 2024, Iranian student Ahoo Daryaei was walking up the steps of her university when her hijab briefly slipped from her head.

Distracted by her phone and apparently unaware of what had happened, she continued on — until members of the morality police confronted her.

According to accounts of the incident, Ms Daryaei was yelled at and seized by men, whose forceful grabbing began tearing at her clothes. She was then dragged toward a room reportedly used to discipline female students.

Cornered and desperate to reclaim control of the situation, the mother-of-two responded in a way designed to stun those confronting her: she removed her clothing and walked through the university courtyard in her underwear.

Footage of the scene quickly spread online, turning the moment into a viral symbol of defiance.

Yet what appeared to many as a brief but fearless act of resistance came at a heavy personal cost.

Iranian authorities later described Ms Daryaei as “sick,” claiming her mental state explained her actions at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University. She was subsequently placed in a psychiatric ward.

Ms Daryaei, however, insists she is mentally sound and argues that the label was used by the regime to obscure a public act of dissent against Iran’s system of control.

In an exclusive interview with Our News Outlet, her close friend reveals the turmoil Ms Daryaei experienced – and still goes through today. 

‘She was being handled aggressively as they tried to pull her into a room and she was getting really annoyed. She wanted them to get off her, but they wouldn’t leave her clothes alone. So she got so annoyed she started taking them off herself,’ her friend told Our News Outlet. 

‘She took off all her clothes and threw them in front of her, saying: “Well, what are you going to do?” 

‘She felt “if you are going to take them off, I will do it myself. If you’re going to do what I think you are going to do to me in that room, I am going to make [my act of defiance] worth [the punishment I will receive because of it]”.’

Ms Daryaei, who had stripped down to her underwear, sat on a wall within the university’s courtyard before police arrived. She was then hurled into the back of a van. 

In what is believed to be an attempt to further humiliate her, the mother’s head was forced between a female officer’s legs as they drove to the station, causing her to nearly suffocate. 

‘Her head was put between one of the two women’s knees, with her hair hanging all over her face,’ her friend described. 

‘She couldn’t breathe and was held in a position as if they were trying to hurt her. She has two kids and was thinking, “if this woman doesn’t let me go, I will suffocate and my kids will be orphans”.’

As she tried to keep awake, Ms Daryaei ‘bit’ the officer’s hand who ‘opened her knees’ so she could take a breath. 

Ms Daryaei was then ‘sedated’ in the police station. 

‘She started shouting and kicking in protest. They came and tried to inject her with something,’ the friend said. 

‘The first time the needle actually broke, and the second time they managed to inject her, causing her to lose consciousness.’

Ms Daryaei woke up with her hands and feet tied down to a bed in a hospital, unaware of where she was. 

‘She asked to see her family, but doctors weren’t replying. She didn’t know where she was,’ they said. 

‘Every time she was trying to get information, they came and injected her with something else, causing her to fall back to sleep or lose consciousness.

‘At that point, people were interviewing her and asking why she did what she did. 

‘They asked what was in her mind and accused her of trying to leave Iran and seek asylum somewhere else.’ 

This was the moment Ms Daryaei realised the danger she was in, her friend said, as the video gathered millions of views on social media and ignited international uproar. 

This extended to the UK, where a group of Iranian activists protested in London’s Parliament Square wearing underwear and red robes in a nod to the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. 

Human rights group Amnesty International said Ms Daryaei removed her clothes ‘in protest against abusive enforcement of compulsory veiling by security officials’ and called for her ‘immediate and unconditional release’.  

As condemnation against her treatment increased, so did the Iranian regime’s determination to label Ms Daryaei’s ‘act of defiance’ as a sign of her being ‘mentally unwell’.

In Iran women must cover the neck and head after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

Modest clothing is enforced by the specially created morality police, formally known as Gasht-e Ershad.

‘Police were then visiting her family, including her kids, and threatening them. They were showing they had power over her,’ her friend said. 

‘They then visited her ex-husband, who was forced to say she had mental issues. 

‘The regime’s plan was, because a video of what happened had gone viral, they had to force her to admit she was ill and this episode was because of her mental issues. 

‘They could force her to say that through her family.’  

With her ex-husband’s ‘confirmation’, Ms Daryaei was untied from her hospital bed and released after 18 days. 

She was told by Iranian authorities ‘she would be watched and her phone would be tapped’, her friend said, while she had to take anti-psychotic medication – and pay for it under her insurance. 

Ms Daryaei’s surveillance, her friend recounted, reached such heights that officials noticed she wasn’t taking the medication after she was ‘walking normally’ – the strength of medication would have made her seem dazed. 

Ms Daryaei is now forced to take monthly injections of flupentixol, a medication used to treat schizophrenia, which are administered by doctors to ensure she is taking it.

‘Her family said it is better for her to have these injections with the label of being mentally ill, rather than being hanged, be put in prison or tortured,’ her friend described. ‘This is the only way forward now.

‘She asked the doctor what would happen if she stopped taking the injections, and they said they would arrest her and put her back into mental hospital, tied up.’ 

Now aged 32, and a textiles student at a separate university, Ms Daryaei is said to reflect on her reason behind the protest in two different lights. 

‘The whole point was, first of all, she didn’t like the way they were pulling her, and the way they were like treating her just over a scarf. This made her think, “Let me do more, so that this is worth all this pulling and making me feel so little and obviously hurt. Let me resist in such a way that is equal to what I am being put through”,’ her friend said. 

‘And after that was obviously the point would have been to show that she’s in control of her own body, her own choices, and that’s what she was trying to kind of show at the end. 

‘Like, “you know what? This is me. This is my body. This is my life. And you know, if I want to walk in a bikini, I’ll walk in a bikini”.’ 

Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani denied at the time both the violent nature of her arrest and any connection of the incident to the Islamic dress code.

‘The issue was actually something else,’ she said, noting that ‘this level of nudity is not accepted anywhere’.