A woman at an Iranian university stripped to her underwear in an apparent act of protest after university security forces violently stopped her for not wearing a headscarf.

Video of Saturday’s incident shows a naked woman standing next to a ladder in an outdoor area of ​​a branch of Tehran’s Islamic Azad University. It later shows the woman walking on the sidewalk and crossing the street before being surrounded by security forces and apparently pushed into a car.

Not wearing the hijab is a crime punishable under the Iranian regime’s Sharia law. The law is overseen by a task force known as the moral police, who patrol around the cities. In universities, students are monitored for compulsory hijab by college security forces.

The woman was initially taken to a police station and then transferred to a psychiatric facility, according to the Iranian newspaper’s Telegram channel Farkhitegan. A university spokesman said the “real motive” for the act was still under investigation, Farhikhtegan reported.

The Islamic Republic of Iran has a history of committing protesters to psychiatric facilities, claiming that their acts of resistance are due to their unstable mental health.

The video of the woman, who has not been officially identified, has been circulating widely on social media since Sunday, with people demanding answers about what happened to the woman. Many people and activists praised her for her “courage” and “resilience”, sharing the video with the hashtag “Woman, Life, Freedom”, a slogan for women’s rights in Iran.

Challenging the regime’s decision to commit the woman to a psychiatric clinic, a story on X posted that the woman was “not crazy,” writing, “The girl is not crazy. She had no weapon to resist except her body.”

Amnesty International asked the authorities to release the woman immediately, and in a post on X requested that “pending her release, the authorities must protect her from torture and other ill-treatment” and ensure that she can contact her family and a lawyer.

“Allegations of beatings and sexual violence against her during her arrest require independent and impartial investigations,” the human rights non-governmental organization added. “Those responsible must be held accountable.”

Mai Sato, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Islamic Republic of Iran, posted on it X account that it will closely monitor the incident, including how authorities respond to it.

A growing number of Iranian women have pushed back against laws requiring the headscarf since deadly nationwide protests in September 2022.

The protests followed the tragic death of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurdish woman who was taken into police custody for not fully complying with hijab rules. The death of the 22-year-old Kurdish woman in police custody sparked Iran’s longest anti-government protests since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Human rights groups we say that more than 500 people have been killed in these demonstrations and, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency, more than 20,000 people have been arrested.

Amini became a symbol of resistance that sparked the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, sparking protests and gathering all generations and genders into the streets, fighting to be freed from a violent regime.