Iran’s Onerous Hijab Law for Women Is Now a Campaign Issue

THE NEW YORK TIMES: In a sign that a women-led movement has gained ground, all of the men running for president have distanced themselves from the harsh tactics used to enforce mandatory hijab.

Iranian officials insisted for decades that the law requiring women to cover their hair and dress modestly was sacrosanct and not even worth discussion. They dismissed the struggle by women who challenged the law as a symptom of Western meddling.

Now, as Iran holds a presidential election this week, the issue of mandatory hijab, as the hair covering is known, has become a hot campaign topic. And all six of the men running, five of them conservative, have sought to distance themselves from the methods of enforcing the law, which include violence, arrests and monetary fines.

“Elections aside, politics aside, under no circumstances should we treat Iranian women with such cruelty,” Mustafa Pourmohammadi, a conservative presidential candidate and cleric with senior roles in intelligence, said in a round-table discussion on state television last week. He has also said that government officials should be punished over the hijab law because it was their duty to educate women about why they should wear hijab, not violently enforce it.

The hijab has long been a symbol of religious identity but has also been a political tool in Iran. And women have resisted the law, in different ways, ever since it went into effect after the Islamic Revolution in 1979. » | Farnaz Fassihi and Leily Nikounazar | Monday, June 24, 2024

Iranian Woman Whipped 74 Times for Refusing to Wear Hijab

THE TELEGRAPH: 33-year-old was charged with 'encouraging permissiveness' after several Tehran outings

Roya Heshmati, 33, was told she was being punished because she had violated public morals
An Iranian woman received 74 lashes for refusing to wear the hijab, defying the strict dress code even as she was taken to be whipped.

Roya Heshmati, 33, was charged with “encouraging permissiveness” after appearing unveiled on several occasions in the capital, Tehran.

“Her penalty of 74 strokes of the lash was carried out in accordance with the law and with sharia,” and “for violating public morals,” the judiciary’s Mizan Online website said late on Saturday.

Ms Heshmati was also reportedly ordered to pay a fine of 12 million rials (£225).

“The convicted … encouraged permissiveness [by appearing] disgracefully in busy public places in Tehran,” Mizan reported.

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“As the lashes struck my body, I whispered, ‘In the name of woman, in the name of life, dawn will come,’” BBC Persian quoted her as saying, adding she had refused to cover her hair even as she was transported to be flogged. » | Telegraph’s Foreign Staff | Sunday, January 7, 2024

As I have said before, Islam is a pox on the free world. Unfortunately, this dark thinking has been brought to our shores. Many a Muslim living in Britain longs for the introduction of the Sharia’h to replace our common law. Beware! – © Mark Alexander

Tracks East - ARTE

Les filles d’Iran en colère : elles ne lâchent rien Irans wütende Töchter: Sie geben nicht auf
Sep 19, 2023 | In September 2022 the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody set off nationwide protests in Iran. One year on from this civil unrest, Tracks East meets the ultra-connected younger generation who demonstrate their opposition to the government through art and music.

These are brave young ladies. More power to them! Burn those damn rags! Defy the mullahs! Liberation is coming. – Mark Alexander

Iran's Women a Year after Mahsa Amini's Death - BBC News

Sep 16, 2023 | One year on from Masha Amini's death, Iran’s protests may have subsided, but women have found new ways to defy the country’s regime.

Last year, the death of 22-year-old Mahsa after being detained by Iran’s morality police sparked unprecedented protests across the country. Today, several people in Tehran have described bold acts of rebellion that would have been almost unthinkable to Iranians this time last year.

But Iran’s regime is not backing down. A draft law, currently before parliament - the so-called Hijab and Chastity Bill, would impose new punishments on women who go unveiled.


Related.

It is so sad and tragic that this beautiful young Iranian lady has lost an eye whilst demonstrating for women’s rights to walk around in public without having to cover themselves in rags. Furthermore, it is incomprehensible that young women who attend school in France are fighting for their rights to cover themselves up with them. It really is a topsy-turvy world that we are now living in. – Mark

Iran's Women a Year after Mahsa Amini's Death: 'I Wear What I Like Now'

Many women in Iran have permanently taken off their headscarf
BBC: A young woman walks down a street in Tehran, her hair uncovered, her jeans ripped, a bit of midriff exposed to the hot Iranian sun. An unmarried couple walk hand in hand. A woman holds her head high when asked by Iran's once-feared morality police to put a hijab on, and tells them: "Screw you!"

These acts of bold rebellion - described to me by several people in Tehran over the past month - would have been almost unthinkable to Iranians this time last year. But that was before the death in the morality police's custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who had been accused of not wearing her hijab [veil] properly.

The mass protests that shook Iran after her death subsided after a few months in the face of a brutal crackdown, but the anger that fuelled them has not been extinguished. Women have just had to find new ways to defy the regime.

A Western diplomat in Tehran estimates that across the country, an average of about 20% of women are now breaking the laws of the Islamic Republic by going out on to the streets without the veil.

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"Society won't go back to the pre-Mahsa time," she believes. "In the streets, in the metro and in bazaars, men now admire women and praise their courage… Remarkably, even in some very religious cities like Qom, Mashhad and Isfahan, women no longer wear a headscarf." » | Caroline Hawley, BBC News | Friday, September 15, 2023

Iranian Women Continue to Defy Dress Code Laws as Government Promises Crackdown | DW News

Aug 9, 2023 | Iran has stepped up the enforcement of headscarf rules for women. Many have been defying the dress code since the death of a woman in 'morality police' custody sparked mass protests. DW spoke to several women after the morality police returned to the streets.

Der Bericht auf Deutsch.

Könnten ein Jahr nach dem Tod von Mahsa Amini neue Massenproteste im Iran ausbrechen?

Aug 9, 2023 | Seit einigen Wochen geht Irans Sittenpolizei wieder gegen Frauen im Land vor, die sich in aller Öffentlichkeit der konservativen islamischen Kleiderordnung widersetzen, etwa in dem sie kein Kopftuch tragen. Die Regierung droht bei Verstößen mit drakonischen Strafen. Trotzdem setzen viele Frauen ihren stillen Protest gegen das Regime fort.

Attackers Cut Ponytails from Iranian 10-year-old Girls Who Refuse to Wear Hijab

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

Silent Resistance against the Islamic Leadership in Iran | DW News

May 18, 2023 | While mass protests have become less common in Iran, resistance against the Islamic leadership is visible everywhere, and authorities are still struggling to regain control. DW met some of the women defying the laws they say are limiting their freedom.

The Debate: Le Pen Confirms Plan to Ban Muslim Headscarf in Public • FRANCE 24 English

Apr 20, 2022 • The far-right candidate has reiterated her pledge to ban headscarves in public spaces, calling them a “symbol of women’s submission”.

“I don’t attack a religion, Islam, which has every right to be in France,” she says. “The real issue is Islamist terrorism. We must pass legislation against the Islamist ideology that is attacking the very foundations of our Republic.”

“I’m not in favour of banning religious symbols in public. Secularism is a freedom,” Macron says. If Le Pen were to implement such a measure, “France, the cradle of the Enlightenment, would be the first country in the world to ban religious symbols in public.”

Ghada - The Toxic Modesty of the Hijab

The Debate: Macron and Islam: French President Weighs In on New Headscarf Row

France is on again, off again row over the Muslim headscarf is on again. This time, was it the president who started it? With March municipal elections on the way, Emmanuel Macron telling MPs from his own party not to let the far-right own the conversation on secularism, radicalisation and sectarianism. But his own camp emerged divided from a parliamentary debate and when a far-right regional councilor baited a mother who had accompanied children on a school outing, all bets were off. We ask what the law says and what the French want.

Barbara Kay: Pro-hijab Kids Book Sends Dangerous Message

Hijab and Politics. The Veil, between Truth and Romanticization

The recent events on the political landscape in Sweden related to hijab, gave me the final push to make a video on the subject. On how people in the West are totally oblivious to the what and why of hijab, how they glorify and romanticize it, and perversely embraced a symbol of the modesty culture and an instrument for subjugation of women as a symbol of feminism.

Hijab, the What, Why and When

I attempt to speak briefly about what Hijab is, why it is & its recent history, and how modesty culture and feminism are incompatible

Leftists: Stop Normalizing the Hijab

Barbara Kay of TheRebel.media is troubled by the growing call to make hijab-wearing fashionable and even "feminist."

Woman 'Faces Calls to Be Executed after Going Out without a Hijab in Saudi Arabia'

CAIR Supports Virginia Muslim Woman Fired for Wearing Hijab

"Muslim Pope" Explains the Hijab: It's Not Just about Modesty

Ezra Levant talks to anti-jihad writer Marc Lebuis about the RCMP's new hijab uniform. Lebuis reveals what Yusuf al-Qaradawi, one of Sunni Islam's most powerful scholars, says about the headcovering: That it is primarily a sign of Muslim supremacy and separatism, not modesty.

Ezra Levant Show: Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to Introduce New Hijab Uniform

Ezra Levant of TheRebel.media reports that the RCMP is bringing in an official women’s police uniform featuring a Muslim hijab.

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