Ahoo Daryaei has shown breath-taking bravery and we should all pray for her. (Image: UGC/AFP via Getty Images)
Sometimes an individual lone act of bravery leaves you virtually speechless. My jaw hit the carpet when I read about what a female student at Tehran University did this week.
Ahoo Daryaei, a 30-year-old French literature student, was violently attacked inside Azan University’s science and research centre. Not by a mugger or sexual predator. By Iran’s state security goons. Why? You can probably guess, this being Iran.
That’s right. She wasn’t wearing a hijab (headscarf). Patrolling heavies believed to be from the Basij paramilitaries, the thuggish religious morality police of Iran’s government, piled in and tried to drag her into their on-site office.
Ahoo was having none of it. She fought back, and they ripped and tore at her clothes. Her hoodie was pulled off in the struggle, and she managed to break free. And know what she did next? She made the only protest she could think of. She defiantly removed the rest of her clothes, all the way down to her underwear. Then she walked around the campus in her bra and knickers. This, in a city and a country where a woman merely leaving her head uncovered can be arrested, beaten up, and worse.
Two years ago, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died after being arrested for not wearing a hijab. Iran’s authorities claimed she’d had a heart attack. Eyewitnesses – women arrested along with Mahsa – state unequivocally that she was beaten to death in custody.
So Ahoo would have known she was risking her life. For several minutes she evaded the “guidance patrol” until, inevitably, reinforcements arrived – at least 10 more security guards. What followed was filmed on other students’ smartphones.
“Oh my God, how many of them are attacking just one person?” one onlooker can be heard saying. The footage shows Ahoo being forcibly bundled into a car and driven away. She’s not been seen since. A witness said that when the guards ripped her clothes “she became very angry, and began taking off the rest of her things. She yelled at them furiously and removed her trousers… later, plain-clothes officers ambushed her and forced her into a car.”
Student media sites say the woman suffered serious injuries during her arrest, including a severe blow to the head after it was smashed against a vehicle. This has gone viral in Iran under the hashtag “Girl of Science and Research.”
“If courage had a face,” one user posted beneath a picture of Ahoo sitting defiantly on a wall. “That brave girl is my leader,” wrote another.
With utter predictability, officials claim Ahoo “suffers from psychological disorders and mental issues”.
Yeah, right. They would say that, wouldn’t they? Just like poor Mahsa “died from a coronary”.
God help this latest brave, defiant victim of Iran’s murderous misogynists.
Say a prayer for her, please.
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Absolutely fascinating research published this week proving pretty much irrefutably that crows have extraordinary memories for human faces, and also the capacity to bear grudges for years. I’ve long suspected this.
We have a large community of carrion crows – the commonest kind in the UK – living in the trees on the heath opposite our house. Roughly five years ago I saw a group of about 10 of them clustered in the middle of the road, pecking furiously at something.
It was a squirrel, half-dead after presumably being hit by a car. The crows were enthusiastically trying to finish it off. Instinctively I ran out, waving my arms and shouting, and the birds flapped back into the trees. The squirrel dragged itself to safety under a pile of brushwood and disappeared.
The crows, baulked of their prey, were clearly furious with me. They cawed and flapped around above my head. As I say, this was half a decade ago.
To this very day when I leave the house, the crows scold me. Never anyone else. Just me. They remember. They’re still angry. Incredible.
The King and Queen of Spain were a class act in Valencia (Image: MANAURE QUINTERO/AFP via Getty Images)
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Full marks to the King and Queen of Spain for going where angels feared to tread in flood-ravaged Valencia. Lesser public figures – i.e. the regional politicians and civil servants who signally failed to issue timely warnings that the lethal deluge was on its way – were pretty much nowhere to be seen in the catastrophic aftermath.
But Felipe and wife Letizia, above, put their tin hats on, metaphorically speaking, and trudged through the mud to talk with survivors. The couple were duly pelted with sludge, rocks and rubbish, a touchstone for all that rage and grief.
Letizia let the mud dry unwiped from her cheek and afterwards Felipe said he “completely understood” the mob reaction. A courteous, courageous couple.
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Hmm. There’s something odd going on with the public votes for Strictly pairings. Last weekend BBC sports presenter Sam Quek and Gladiator Montell Douglas found themselves in the dance-off.
Both were extremely promising contestants (Sam got the chop and Montell lived to dance another day), and exceptionally likeable too.
But I am genuinely surprised that someone like Wynne Evans, caught on camera recently slyly groping partner Katya’s stomach, hasn’t lost more public support and found himself having to fight to stay in the contest. The judges would probably save him – he’s a terrific dancer – but still. Odd.
