Iranian clerics adopt plan to pressurise women to wear hijabs

Iran’s conservative clerical government has adopted a plan to exert indirect pressure on women and girls to wear the compulsory headscarf, the hijab, in public.

According to the parliamentary cultural committee member Hossein Jalali, who was quoted by Iranian news agencies, there is to be no physical contact with violators.

The authorities have, so far, shut down shops, malls, hotels, restaurants and cafes which have allowed the entry of women without the hijab, while women whose heads are not covered have been stopped from boarding domestic flights at some airports.

Compliance, by means of strategically placed cameras, is to be monitored in vehicles, government offices, educational institutions, universities, airports and terminals, streets, and parks. Cyberspace will be controlled.

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Law-breakers will be handed fines from $10-$6,000, according to Jalali. Punishments will also include revoking driver’s licences and passports, and banning internet use. Websites and social media accounts of anti-hijab celebrities and commentators will be closed.

Last September, nationwide anti-hijab demonstrations took place after Iranian-Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini (23), died in the custody of morality police for allegedly failing to wear her hijab properly. The slogan adopted by the protesters was “Woman, Life, Freedom!”

Although the security forces employed brute force to suppress the protests, killing more than 500 people and arresting 20,000, the government fears a resurgence of unrest could be triggered by a single incident or a clash.

An Iranian woman identified as Pendar told Human Rights Watch that small groups of women have adopted a policy of civil disobedience by removing their headscarves and walking around Tehran. While they have been met with the disapproval of conservatives, , schoolchildren and youths have shown their approval. Thanks to this effort, she said people “have become more comfortable” with women who do not wear the hijab in public and workplaces.

She said women have joined this spontaneous movement and parents have begun to reconsider how their children should act. “Now you see a lot of people without hijab. Especially when you go to neighbourhoods near universities,” she said. “This society is not the same as two years ago.”

Mandatory wearing of the hijab has become law since the 1979 clerical revolution which ousted Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, who discouraged women from wearing the hijab. His father banned it in 1936 and the ban remained in place until Mohammed Reza Pahlav took power. The hijab and enveloping cloak, the chador, were adopted as emblems of the revolution by women who opposed the shah’s rule.

However, middle-class and urban women have resented this imposition and their protests have been joined by discontented workers, farmers and merchants who have long accused the clerical government of mismanagement and corruption, and complained about the lack of jobs and inflation. Revolts were staged in 2009, 2019, 2020, and 2021.

Despite the unrest, the Iranian government appears in denial. Mohsen Rafighdoost, a former Revolutionary Guards officer and a current politician, blamed foreign enemies and poor management for the Amini protests. “All the problems in the country have economic roots. If we can solve them, the rest of the problems will be solved more easily,” Rafighdoost told the official Iranian Students’ News Agency.

However, he referred to the 35 million Iranians (out of a population of 35 million) who face poverty and warned the authorities: “If left to their fate, these millions will revolt.”