Iranian Dissidents Renew Strong Rejection Of Mandatory Hijab
Maryam Sinaiee
Iran International
Nine former politicians and civil activists in Iran have demanded the abolition of compulsory hijab, calling it “double suppression” of women.
Iran International
Nine former politicians and civil activists in Iran have demanded the abolition of compulsory hijab, calling it “double suppression” of women.
“The Islamic regime has resorted to hijab to double its discrimination against women in an era when human equality, regardless of gender, race, ethnicity, creed and religion, plays a pivotal role in progressive human discourse,” a statement published Monday by Zeitoun news website said.
“The cruel and violent measures to enforce the mandatory hijab have been disastrous not only for women, but also for their fathers, husbands, and brothers. In other words, Iranian men have also found it difficult to bear so much oppression of women,” said the statement six of the signatories of which are also prominent political and intellectual figures.
Most of the signatories, including prominent female Islamic scholar Sedigheh Vasmaghi, are known as “religious intellectuals” in Iranian politics, meaning they advocate a moderate view of Islam.
Vasmaghi, 63, recently removed her veil after decades and even challenged Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s hijab edict, arguing that there is no foundation in the Quran or the Sharia for such an edict.
Zahra Rahnavard, one of the leaders of Iran's Green Movement, is also among the signatories of the statement. Rahnavard and her husband Mir-Hossein Mousavi have been under house arrest since 2011. The seventy- eight-year-old academic and artist chose to wear the hijab before the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and has still held on to it. Mousavi was prime minister in the early years of the Islamic Republic and both were committed supporters of the regime.
Prominent human rights lawyer and Sakharov Prize winner Nasrin Sotoudeh, 60, however, has for years fought against the compulsory hijab and defended other women who were prosecuted for protesting the mandatory hijab.
The statement also criticizes the regime for denying civil and human rights such as the right to work, study, benefit from social rights and services such as healthcare for not abiding by the hijab rules.
“These extreme beliefs and methods have imposed heavy costs on the country, particularly on Iranian women and girls, and caused the shedding of the blood of the likes of Mahsa and Armita,” the statement said.
The death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini, 22, in September 2020 in the custody of morality police resulting from injuries she sustained during her arrest for what the authorities called “inadequate hijab” sparked widespread protests across Iran that went on for months and were heavily suppressed by the government.
Tens of thousands were arrested during the protests, at least 550 protesters including 68 children were killed, and thousands including hundreds that lost their eyes to birdshot bullets fired directly in their faces by security forces, sustained very serious injuries.
Armita Geravand, 16, who sustained a head injury after allegedly being assaulted by hijab enforcers in a metro car in Tehran also fell to the same fate after a month-long coma on October 28.
Fearing another round of protests, authorities forced Armita’s family to bury her as discreetly as possible. Nevertheless, dozens including Sotoudeh and Vasmaghi, two of the signatories of the present statement, attended the burial at Tehran’s Behesht-e Zahra.
Sotoudeh who had previously called Armita’s death a “state killing’ and attended the funeral without a headscarf in defiance of the regime was detained, and Vasmaghi was assaulted by four agents but was reportedly rescued by other people at the scene.
In a commentary entitled “Lesson Taught By the Trumpeter Sadegh” published by the reformist Etemad newspaper last week, reformist commentator Abbas Abdi warned the regime that insisting on imposing hijab by all means including violence would only cause a massive negative reaction from the public.
In an interview with the conservative Khabar Online, excerpts of which were published Monday, Abdolreza Davari alleged that the Secretary General of Paydari, Sadegh Mahsouli, in a recent interview, has signaled to the regime that Ahmadinejad is prepared to backtrack from his controversial behavior in recent years if he is given a share in power.
The former president began criticizing the regime after he was not allowed to run again in 2017 and his defiance gradually increased to the point of attacking Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei directly for multiple crises in the country. However, he has been silent for more than a year, keeping a low profile.
“They want to revive and restore the status of Mr. Ahmadinejad within their organization,” Davari who once served as an advisor to Ahmadinejad but has completely distanced himself from him in the past few years, said. He went on the say that Paydari is the only politic al force engaged in reviving Ahmadinejad’s political status.
These comments were made a week after in an interview with the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC) linked Fars News Agency, Mahsouli praised Ahmadinejad, calling him “charismatic” and a person with “innate management capabilities” and a good command of many things including the economy and diplomacy.
At the same time, Mahsouli who says he has not had any contact with Ahmadinejad in twelve years, showered some praise on Raisi and his administration but claimed that his party does not have anyone in the government. Contrary to this assertion, it is a well-known fact in Iran that Paydari’s ultraconservative members hold many positions in the Raisi administration.
Mahsouli who has led the Paydari Party in the past three years is a former Revolutionary Guard officer and a business tycoon who served as minister of interior and minister of welfare and social security under Ahmadinejad.
Political rivals and critics such as Afshar Soleimani, a former diplomat, allege that he amassed his wealth when Ahmadinejad allowed him to control the oil swap business with the Republic of Azerbaijan in the early 2000s, when he was a governor.
Soleimani also alleged in an interview last week that Mahsouli and Ahmadinejad only pretend to be not on good terms and pointed out that neither has ever spoken seriously ill of the other and will stand together again unless something drastic happens.
The Paydari (Steadfastness) Party has its appendages in all government institutions including the parliament where their members form a very influential minority that often takes a leading role amid the weak presence of established conservative and reformist parties.
Many believe Mahsouli, then interior minister, was the man behind the alleged rigging of the 2009 elections which secured a second term for the incumbent Ahmadinejad.
Both men were strongly supported by Ayatollah Mohammad-Taghi Mesbah-Yazdi, ultra-hardliners’ spiritual father, who withdrew his support from Ahmadinejad after his fall from Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s grace in May 2011.
In another interview a year ago, Davari claimed that around eighty percent of high-ranking officials in the Raisi administration were picked from among those serving in high positions in Ahmadinejad’s government.
In the same interview he dubbed the Raisi administration as “Ahmadinejad’s third government”. He has also previously alleged that in the past few years the former controversial president has been of the belief that the Islamic Republic is doomed to collapse and when it does, he wants to be Iran's Boris Yeltsin “and commandeer all power in one go”.