VIt was a month ago that Narges took to the streets in shorts for the first time. Only for 15 minutes. She couldn’t stand it any longer. “I was always afraid that something could happen,” says the teacher from the northern Iranian city of Rasht. She had thought about the action for a week.
Then she started walking to the nearest café and back again. In between, she took a selfie. She posted the photo on Twitter. Eventually she got scared and switched her profile to private so only her friends could see it.
Civil disobedience against the Islamic Republic’s dress code has long existed in Iran. But since the Kurd Jina Mahsa Amini was picked up by the so-called moral police in Tehran ten months ago and died in police custody, the boundaries have shifted. In the big cities you see a lot of women without a headscarf, especially in the more affluent neighborhoods. Teacher Narges estimates that this applies to around a third of the women in her neighborhood. In the city center of Rasht, about five to ten percent of the women are unveiled.
Women who “break norms” should be brought to justice
The Iranian government is taking various measures against this, but the notorious moral police have been holding back for months. Apparently that was part of the strategy to get the protests under control after Amini’s death. On Sunday, however, the Iranian police announced a U-turn. A spokesman said the vice police would resume work, according to state media. Women who “insist on breaking norms” would first be warned and then taken to court. The police are responding to “demands from the public” as well as from President Ebrahim Raisi and other political leaders.
In recent months, however, the state’s attempts at intimidation have proved ineffective given the sheer number of unveiled women. It remains to be seen to what extent the moral police will seek confrontation with the population. Narges, the teacher from Rasht, says the worst is to be expected but she prefers to keep hoping for change. “I think they’re afraid of the costs and the loss of international image. They don’t want more pressure from abroad.”
So far the government has tried to keep unveiled women out of social life. She threatens shops, taxi operators and restaurants with closure and fines if they serve customers without a headscarf. Weekly it confiscates vehicles whose owners drive unveiled. She has installed cameras with facial recognition in some places. There have been some highly symbolic penalties over the past few days, showing that a new campaign is about to begin. One woman was sentenced to body washing, another to forced therapy, and a third to prison.
Taking off the headscarf as victory over fear
Political hardliners demand harsh action. They see the undermining of the headscarf requirement as a threat to the continued existence of the Islamic Republic. A new “law to protect the culture of chastity and the headscarf” is currently being negotiated in parliament. This includes fines. Many hardliners dismiss it as too moderate. They argue that the wealthy are undeterred by fines. The country’s chief judge, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Esche’i, explained that according to the current legal situation, violating the headscarf requirement is a crime that can be punished accordingly.
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