Protest at London's Piccadilly Circus against mandatory hijab in Iran. (Source: Garry Knight)

 

What happened?: Recently, a succession of protests broke out regarding the Iranian Government’s hijab ruling, which resulted in violence and several casualties, with at least 234 protesters, including 29 children, killed by security forces.

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The cause: On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died in the hospital only moments after being arrested and reportedly abused by Iranian policemen.

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• Before Amini’s death, the public’s spirit of protesting against the oppressive hijab laws was dormant.

• The reactions to Amini’s death reveal that resentment, fueled by the oppressive hijab ruling, existed in Iranian women for an extensive time.

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Weeks after Mahsa Amini’s death, women of all ages began protesting against the oppressive laws obligating the wearing of the religious garment.

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• The protests shed light on the democratic nature of the citizens in a non-democratic society.

• Young women are now prompted to skip classes, prioritizing this issue over their education, to protest against the hijab ruling that oppresses them.

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However, these atrocities aren’t necessarily new: For a long time, the public or plain-clothes morality police aggressively confronted or attacked women for defying Iran’s degrading forced hijab laws to defend “public decency.”

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• This evidence is significant as it implies that the exploitation of the hijab ruling has been a recurring pattern in Iranian society even before this year’s incident, questioning the value and morality of the law.

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The violent police force infers that women are restricted from their human rights, and as such, women are constantly fearful of possible violence, where protection from the government is absent.

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• These events have inevitably led to mass protests across Iran, ranging from Isfahan, Shiraz, Tabriz, Rasht, Mashhad, Sanandaj, and Kerman, to Hamedan.

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From the perspective of the Iranians, protesting was the last action to bring justice to Iranian society and ensure their freedom and human rights.

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However, even these attempts proved meaningless in a country abiding by strict theocracy.

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• Thus, this incident has revealed that freedom of expression and assembly are absent in Iranian society.

• Iran’s Committee to Protect Children’s Rights has found that during the protests, “28 children and adolescents have been killed and detained.”

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Although the government and public service are meant to guarantee welfare, freedom, and security for its citizens, the values embedded in the Iranian political systems have halted such progression.

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The problem’s root: In 1983, the Iranian government imposed the Hijab Law after women began protesting for their freedom of choice in clothes.

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• The law was initially meant to ensure women’s modesty and privacy from men, but the Iranian government and authorities have constantly exploited the law in recent years.

• Such decisions made by the Iranian government altered the woman’s course of life and convenience in Iranian society.

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