Iran International
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assertion Tuesday that flouting hijab is “religiously and politically haram” has prompted officials to signal stricter measures.
At a meeting with state officials Tuesday, Khamenei claimed that foreign intelligence services were encouraging Iranian women to disobey mandatory hijab. He also claimed that “the enemy” is working according to “a plan and plot” and urged authorities to have their own plan for dealing with the issue of hijablessness.
“Discarding hijab is haram based on Sharia and also politically,” he declared. His declaration was a clear signal to authorities that they need to do anything it takes to re-establish control over women which had somehow waned following anti-regime protests.
“The order given by his excellency is clear,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said Wednesday while promising to give precedence to any hijab-related motion or bill.
Following Khamenei’s cue, the ministry of interior in its second statement on hijab within a week, alleged that the opposition to compulsory hijab was an enemy plot advanced by foreign intelligence services and the opposition outside Iran, who through social media are trying to use it to “create deep social divides and a divide between the people and the government.”
Airport staff refusing to offer services to ‘hijabless’ women in Shiraz
Claiming that the ministry is responsible for ascertaining and defending “rights of the majority of the people,” the statement said it will fully support the activities of vigilantes who have been harassing women to follow the Islamic dress code.
The ministry also said the judiciary and other organizations involved in the enforcement of compulsory hijab will take action “against the few who act against the society’s norms” to defend the “dignity and identity of the Muslim Iranian women.”
Mahsa Amini’s death in ‘hijab police’ custody in September sparked the protests That engulfed the country nearly non-stop for four months. Many women burned their headscarves during the protests, vowing never to surrender to compulsory hijab again.
‘Hijabless’ women are now seen everywhere, even in some of the most conservative cities. For many, this is a form of civil disobedience. Some social media users have said that in some public venues such as restaurants, ‘hijabless’ women outnumber those who wear headscarves.
On Wednesday, an official of Tehran’s Metro Organization, Masoud Dorosti, said his organization has set up a “chastity and hijab taskforce” for enforcement on public transport. According to Dorosti, the first phase of the plan, giving verbal warnings to women who do not abide by the hijab requirement, has begun at metro stations. Tehran municipality has adopted similar plans.
The police and the judiciary have also resorted to pressuring businesses to enforce the hijab on their premises.
Authorities have shut down hundreds of shops, restaurants, cafes, and ecotourism facilities during the two-week New Year (Nowrouz) holidays across the country.
Earlier this week, the ministry of higher education said institutions under its coverage will no longer offer educational and other services to students who do not abide by hijab rules.
The Islamic Azad University, which is not administered by the ministry, has also announced strict measures against defiance of the compulsory hijab. The university which has over 1.1 million students across Iran has ordered its faculty to “seriously manage” abidance of the hijab rules by their students and threatened them with repercussions if students flout hijab in their classes.
“Conflict between professors and students? We are teachers not police or sheriffs. It is knowledge that will eventually be harmed by destroying teachers’ relationship [with students],” a professor of criminal law at Tehran university, who was recently sacked for criticizing the regime after the execution of four young protesters, said in a tweet Tuesday.
The news comes amid reports of the cultural icon’s sense of hopelessness in the face of the country’s dire political and economic situation having led to his death.
Pour-Ahmad had described the popular protests that started last September as “bloody and painful” and wrote: “With all the scorching we have on our souls, what festival, what festivity?”
Initially, reports had claimed Pour-Ahmad died of a heart failure, but the Iranian magazine, Today’s Film, reported that he ended his life because of “depression, despair, the feeling of uselessness and lack of hope in future. Simply so terrible, unbelievable, horrible and shocking,” citing sources close to the star.
The verdict of the 74-year-old’s suicide was ruled by Mehdi Fallahmiri, the prosecutor in northern Gilan Province, who initially dispatched a murder investigation team on hearing the news of Pour-Ahmad's death.
Though the suicided was confirmed, Fallahmiri said “further investigation” is needed. The body has been transferred to the coroner’s office.
Unconfirmed reports say that he left an eight-page letter explaining his decision. However, the content of the note has not been disclosed.
Mehdi Kouhian, an attorney who has been close to the legal cases of detained artists during recent protests recently warned of the toll the unrest and subsequent crackdowns on the cultural community were having in a chilling foreboding of the fate of Pour-Ahmad.
Just days ago, he publicly recommended that the community of artists should help those who were being persecuted by the government by providing secure therapy services.
In a tweet Thursday, he said: “As a result of close contacts I had with dissident artists in the past seven months, I warned less than a month ago about their psychological condition.”
The veteran filmmaker was not a revolutionary and once admitted that before the 1979 revolution he had a beard, but when he saw protesters burning a bookstore, he shaved it off.
Although he was not an outspoken critic of the regime, like some other famous artists who have been jailed, he had become critical of the clerical regime’s intrusion into artistic works.
He had spoken out against censorship and Iran’s annual Fajr Film Festival, where the government increasingly intervenes to ban films it deems “unsuitable”.
Some have already labeled Pour-Ahmad’s death as “government murder” with tributes pouring in from around the world.
Journalist Noushabeh Amiri, who is now in Europe, Tweeted: “Pour-Ahmad was killed by the filthy Islamic Republic, yes, killed.”
She went on to say, “Killing can take different forms. When you chock off the air from an artist, when you pressure him every day, when you take his unfinished film and give it to security agents to complete it, when…This is how they killed Kyumars.”
He will go down in history as one of Iran’s greats. His most famous production was a TV serial called Majid’s Stories, about a boy living with his grandmother, which captivated children, teenagers and adults alike.
Film critic Mehrsa Rahnema told Iran International TV that Pour-Ahmad was one of the few Iranian filmmakers whose films and serials captured the hearts of people of all ages, because he was so close to the real lives of ordinary people.
Rouhani alluded to a temporary rise in the value of Iran’s rial in late March when news emerged that his former nuclear negotiator and deputy foreign minister Abbas Araqchi (Araghchi) had gone to a diplomatic tour of Syria and Lebanon.
"If former Foreign Minister Zarif went for that mission rather than his deputy, the rate of exchange would have possibly dropped [more] by 50,000 rials," he told former aides in a Nowruz gathering this week.
Rouhani and Iran’s reformists have been blaming conservatives and hardliners who control both the presidency and the parliament of squandering the chance to reach an agreement with the West over Iran’s nuclear program, or the inability to manage the economy amid US sanctions.
Hardliners offer contradictory responses. They blame the sanctions when pressed to explain their economic failures, but also claim economic progress is not dependent on sanctions when they want to justify their anti-West ideology or defend their pro-China and pro-Russia policies.
Rouhani dismissed his successor's claim about lack of any connection between foreign policy and economy as "baseless." He said, "at least twice Iranian governments managed to reduce the inflation rate; once between 2003 and 2005 under [moderate] President Mohammad Khatami, and again in the years 2016 to 2018 in my own government."
He reminded that following the 2015 nuclear deal with the West, Iran's economic growth was strong.
Meanwhile, he once again called for a referendum in Iran to determine foreign and domestic policies.
In a related development, conservative pundit Mohammad Mohajeri wrote in a commentary in Etemad newspaper that Iranians will no longer take part in elections just out of a sense of religious or national responsibility.
He added that the undecided [grey] part of the Iranian population now calculates whether to take part in the elections based on how it might affect its livelihood.
However, the emergence of political alliances in the conservative camp and the discussions about impeaching some of the cabinet ministers show that the issue of elections is not totally out of the people's agenda. By discussing impeachments, the government's political rivals signal their presence.
He recalled that the previous parliamentary election was affected by Trump's withdrawal from the nuclear deal with Iran, the Covid pandemic and the people's disillusionment about the possibility of any change in the structure of the government. The result, he said, was unprecedented low turnout which was lower than 20 percent in some of Iran's big cities.
"Now the people are waiting for a move [in the top layer of the political structure] that would indicate there is a will for change," Mohajeri said, reminding that the weakness of the current parliament, possibly the weakest one in the history of Iranian parliaments, leaves no hope in the legislative body. Meanwhile, the regime’s increasing willingness to bar the candidacy of even loyal politicians leaves very little hope for participation in the elections.
Mohajeri expressed regret that although following the shock of the 2022 protests disconcerted officials talked about reforms, but a few weeks after relative calm, they seem to have forgotten their promises. Politicians and regime insiders might be happy even with small changes, but those who took to the streets for over five months and the women who are staging a spectacular show of civil disobedience by rejecting compulsory hijab may have big ideas in mind.