Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi has stated that the hijab is a legal requirement in Iran, following a viral video that appeared to show a man throwing yoghurt at two women who were not wearing the headscarf in a shop near a holy Shia Muslim city. Women in Iran have increasingly defied authorities by discarding their veils after protests that began in September 2022. The protests followed the death of a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman in the custody of the morality police for allegedly violating hijab rules.
The man who threw the yoghurt and two women, a mother and daughter, have been arrested. Raisi stated that the hijab is a legal matter and urged the use of persuasion to convince those who do not believe in the requirement, while judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei threatened to prosecute women who appear in public unveiled without mercy. The Iranian law requires women to cover their hair and wear loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures, with violators facing public rebuke, fines, or arrest.
The death of the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, named Mahsa Amini, sparked protests across Iran against the mandatory wearing of the hijab. Amini was reportedly arrested in the city of Karaj in August 2022 for not wearing a headscarf and was allegedly beaten to death by police officers while in custody. Her death reignited a long-standing debate in Iran over the compulsory hijab rule, which has been in place since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Many Iranian women consider the hijab a symbol of oppression and have been defying the rule by removing their headscarves in public places. The government, however, has been cracking down on such actions, and many women have been arrested or fined for violating the dress code.
