A new anti-hijab movement is stirring controversy in Iran. More and more women are posting videos of themselves walking down the street with their hair uncovered on social media. An act of contestation of the compulsory wearing of the hijab sometimes leading to arrests and clashes.
These acts of protest began on July 12, the date of the National Day of Hijab and Decency in the country. This day is meant to celebrate the introduction of the compulsory hijab in the country after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
However, on the eve of the day, nearly 200 Iranian activists published a statement on Iran’s Radio Zamaneh website in which they called the compulsory hijab in Iran the result of “poisonous thinking” that “discriminates against women”. Activists called on Iranians to “fight and resist” the compulsory hijab. The next day, some Iranian social media users started using the hashtags #No2Hijab and #WalkingUnveiled.
Videos and photos shared on Instagram and Twitter show women walking through the streets unveiled, some violently clashing with police. A video of two women walking the streets without hijab has been viewed more than 28,000 times on Twitter.
A long-standing dispute
Following this protest movement, the Iranian vice police carried out arrests and videos of these arrests also began circulating on the Internet and on Iranian social media.
A fight between women also took place on a bus where a conservatively dressed woman threatened to report to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps another woman who had come out. Following the incident, Sepideh Rashno, the author and anti-hijab activist who came out on the bus, was arrested and forced to make a confession on television.
On TwitterIran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei called the new move a “propaganda” campaign launched by the West.
However, many Iranian women who wear the hijab have also spoken out on social media in support of the women’s movement. These women claim that making the hijab compulsory goes against their beliefs.
Anti-hijab movements have been part of the country’s history since the introduction of compulsory hijab over forty years ago. Between 2017 and 2019, for example, a movement called Les Filles de la Rue de la Révolution took shape, in which women stood silently in a crowd with their hijab tied to a stick.