Iran’s Regime Struggles To Enforce Hijab As Women Resist
Maryam Sinaiee
Iran International
Iran's Police Chief Ahmad Radan has threatened government offices that do not deny services to unveiled women with repercussions as part of hijab enforcement.
Iran International
Iran's Police Chief Ahmad Radan has threatened government offices that do not deny services to unveiled women with repercussions as part of hijab enforcement.
Speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony in the northern province of Mazandaran Wednesday, Brigadier General Radan said his force will be reporting lack of adequate action in enforcing hijab laws by government offices as administrative infringement.
He also vowed that police will be surveilling Caspian Sea beaches, in Mazandaran and Gilan provinces, by special patrols and electronically to prevent any behavior violating hijab laws.
Threats against unveiled women have increased with the arrival of summer which has always been a season for women to ignore the strict government dress code.
In July 2022, after weeks of harsher measures on the streets, President Ebrahim Raisi ordered all government entities to strictly implement a “chastity and hijab” law approved by the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council under hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005.
Not long after that, the death of the 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of hijab enforcers, morality police, fuelled protests that spread throughout the country and lasted for several months.
Since March hardliners have tried to put an end to women’s increasing defiance of the compulsory hijab and to reclaim the lost ground but to no avail: More women are now walking around, commuting, shopping, and jogging unveiled.
Iran's media published the final version of a new hijab bill prepared jointly by the judiciary and the government. An earlier draft which was revealed two weeks ago was strongly criticized by hardliners which saw its punishments for unveiling “too lenient” to be able to stop women from unveiling.
Punishments proposed in the bill are mainly cash fines ranging from 5 million rials ($10) to 240 million rials ($480) for repeat offenders, and deprivation from employment and social media activity for athletes, celebrity artists and activists who unveil.
The bill, however, also includes provisions against “anyone” other than authorized entities, who confronts citizens in public and uses violence and threats against unveiled women.
Hardliners such as Raisi’s very influential father-in-law, Ayatollah Ahmad Alamolhoda, who represents Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Khorasan-e Razavi Province, have strongly criticized the bill.
Alamolhoda alleged on May 26 that the bill, if passed, would promote unveiling rather than prevent it.
Firebrand Hossein Shariatmadari, the editor of the flagship hardliner newspaper Kayhan wrote about the first version of the bill on May 21. “A look at the content of the bill and comparison with the existing laws suggests that the bill has been prepared with the possible aim of removing the existing legal obstacles [against unveiling] and preparing the ground for the spread of this nasty and abominable phenomenon rather than taking action against unveiling,”
The population in general, however, even in many smaller and more conservative areas of the country, appears to have become much more tolerant of women who do not dress according to the prescribed codes and their newfound freedom from the hijab.
“Women know that it’s now or never because the mullahs are afraid of more protests. They are persisting with all their might, given this opportunity, to normalize the presence of unveiled women in the society,” Ronak, a 34-year-old engineer in Tehran told Iran International.
“They can pass any laws they want to convince their supporters they are doing something or reinstate their control but after the recent protests they have realized that the enforcement of such laws by force could be very costly and one little push too far may cause the Berlin Wall to crash down,” she said. “That’s why they are telling the vigilantes to back down.”
Referring to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's recent speech in which he said, "The enemy has started to prepare its artillery against the upcoming elections in Iran," conservative commentator Mohammad Mohajeri quipped in a column in the reformist Etemad newspaper: "What can the enemy do to harm the elections?" and explained that "downplaying the importance of voter turnout, manipulating the election process, rigging the elections, and helping unqualified people to win the elections are among the things the enemy can do to that end."
The commentator was referring to the interference of the Guardian Council, an undemocratic body inserted into the constitution, that rejected hundreds of candidates in the parliamentary election in 2020, and again rejected qualified contenders in the 2021 presidential vote.
Mohajeri pointed out that the enemy cannot interfere with the process of elections. Those who interfere are Islamic Republic officials. executives, supervisory bodies, and security organizations. The enemies will begin their attacks and propaganda only after state officials and institutions make big mistakes by intervening in the election process with the aim of changing the results, he said.
Mohajeri added: "The Guardian Council is where most of such mistakes are made. It is involved from the beginning to the end of the elections and its behavior has always been controversial. The council vets the candidates and appoints the inspectors and supervisors."
He further pointed out that many of those who have been disqualified by the Guardian Council in previous years are well-known political figures who would have been more useful than the current members of the parliament.
Meanwhile, reformist commentator Abbas Abdi accused current officials of making the government useless by bringing it into constant confrontation with the people and their demands. This approach, he said, “will tire everyone including yourselves and I can see the signs of this fatigue in your behavior.”
"The government's interventionist approach and its insistence on excessive and often unnecessary control and punishment, as well as its confrontational approach and its refusal to hold any dialogue have a destructive impact on many economic, political, social and cultural processes including the country's foreign policy," Abdi said.
"When we follow the news, we see many examples of that confrontational behavior for instance in trying to control prices through issuing orders. Everyone, except the government, knows that this does not work. Not only it does not work, it also leads to corruption. The government uses the same wrong methods to fix interest rates, foreign exchange rates and the price of eggs, utilities, fuel, rent and so on.
The government intervenes in everything, including dress code and childbirth, which are issues that cannot be regulated through confrontation, penalties and imprisonment," Abdi added.
The prominent commentator stressed that such methods can only widen the gap between the people and the government.
Meanwhile, shedding light on the bigger picture, former government spokesman and moderate politician Ali Rabiei wrote in article in Etemad that "All revolutions in the Middle East have given governments in the region a license to violate citizenship and human rights as well as democratic rules."
He suggested that governments that rule in the name of revolutions need to find a way to reconcile revolutionary values and citizens' rights by giving the people the right to complain to the judiciary system if government officials undermine their essential rights.