THE TELEGRAPH: Youngsters threatened with ‘big knife’ by unknown assailants, as police demand daughters should not ‘defy our religious values’
Iranian girls are having their hair hacked off by unknown assailants, in what police suggested could be punishment for refusing to wear the hijab.
Girls as young as 10 have had their ponytails chopped off by assailants who threatened them with a “big knife”. The hijab is mandatory from the age of seven in Iran.
The attacks are being carried out by someone who stops girls while driving a car around the streets of Damavand province, according to Arman Melli Online, an Iranian news website.
He is said to move from neighbourhood to neighbourhood and reportedly has been carrying bags filled with hair braids, some of them in multiple colours.
A spokesman for Tehran’s police chief, Babak Namakshenas, said the attacks were “the result of ignoring the Islamic social codes”. » | Ahmed Vahdat | Thursday, July 6, 2023
I spent many years working in the Middle East in years gone by. When I worked in Saudi Arabia, girls as young as ten were not required to wear hijab at all. I was informed on good authority, by a knowledgeable Saudi, that girls were only required to wear hijab upon reaching the age of puberty. Before that, there is no requirement for them to wear it. However, at puberty, the wearing of hijab becomes mandatory. So why are the Iranian authorities insisting that Iranian children wear hijab? Prior to puberty, a girl is but a child. When I worked in Saudi, I often saw little girls playing with each other with the wind blowing through their hair. It seems to me that the Iranians might perhaps have a distorted understanding of the strictures of Islam. – © Mark Alexander
