(Tehran, Iran) Billboards in the Iranian capital announce that women must wear headscarves to honor their mothers. But for the first time since the tumultuous days after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, more women — young and old — are deciding not to.
What is there to know?
The hijab is compulsory for women only in the Taliban-controlled countries of Iran and Afghanistan.
Police and volunteers issue verbal warnings to ensure women wear them in subways, airports and other public places.
Protests erupted in September following the death of 22-year-old Mahza Amini, who was arrested for wearing a hijab too loose.
The apparent challenge comes after months of protests following the September death of 22-year-old Mahza Amini, who was detained by the country’s support team for wearing her hijab too loosely. While the protests seem to have died down, the decision to ban some women from covering their hair in public poses a new challenge to the country’s theocracy. The women’s reaction also exposes divisions in Iran that have been hidden for decades.
Authorities have issued legal threats and closed some businesses that cater to women who don’t wear the hijab. Police and volunteers give verbal warnings in subways, airports and other public places. The text messages targeted drivers who picked up non-veiled women in their vehicles.
But some women are enough regardless of the consequences. They say they are fighting for more freedom in Iran and a better future for their daughters.
Some have suggested that the growing number of women joining their ranks could make it more difficult for authorities to fight back.
“Do they want to close all the businesses? Shervin, a 23-year-old student, said on a recent day in Tehran, cropped, cropped hair waving in the wind. “If I go to the police station, will they close it too? »
WANA News Agency photo provided by Reuters
Police officers patrol the streets of Tehran to ensure women wear the hijab.
However, they are concerned about the risks. The women interviewed gave only their first names for fear of repercussions.
Vida, 29, says her two friends’ decision to cover their hair in public goes beyond the veil.
“This is a message to the government: leave us alone,” he said.
Hijab is compulsory for women only in Taliban-controlled Iran and neighboring Afghanistan. Before the protests erupted in September, it was rare to see women without headscarves, although some sometimes let their hijabs fall over their shoulders. Today, in some neighborhoods of Tehran, it is common to see women without veils.
“Immoral” situations
In 1936, Iranian leader Reza Shah Pahlavi banned the hijab as part of his efforts to draw closer to the West. The ban ended five years later when his son Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi came to power. However, many middle- and upper-class Iranian women choose not to wear the hijab.
During the 1979 Islamic Revolution, some women who helped overthrow the Shah adopted the cape, which covers the body from head to toe, except for the face. Images of armed women wrapped in black cloth became a familiar sight to Americans during the American embassy attack and hostage crisis later that year. But other women followed Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s decision to wear the hijab in public. In 1983, the decision became law with penalties such as fines and two months in prison.
Forty years later, women in central and northern Tehran are seen daily without headscarves. Although the Iranian government initially avoided direct confrontation on the issue, in recent weeks it has increasingly sought state powers to try to curb the practice.
In early April, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that “removing the hijab is neither Islamically nor politically permissible.”
Hartline Media also began publishing details of “immoral” situations in shopping malls, showing women without hijabs. On April 25, authorities closed the 23-story Opal shopping center in northern Tehran for several days after uncovering women hanging out with men in a bowling alley.
“It’s collective punishment,” said Noding Khasra, 32, a salesperson at a clothing store in the mall. “They shut down a shopping center that employs hundreds of people because of some customers’ hair? »
There are signs that repression is intensifying. Some clerics have called for the deployment of the all-volunteer Basij force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guards to enforce the hijab law. Police also say surveillance cameras with “artificial intelligence” will help identify women who don’t cover their heads.
But diplomacy has stalled and anti-government protests could spread, he added.
