tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/hijab-2684/articlesHijab – The Conversation2024-03-14T19:58:07Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2254182024-03-14T19:58:07Z2024-03-14T19:58:07ZIn France, abortion rights and hijab bans highlight a double standard on women’s rights<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/581779/original/file-20240313-26-4feh20.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=56%2C153%2C5348%2C3443&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even though laws on religious symbols are worded neutrally, in practice, they are mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The French parliament recently voted in favour of enshrining the <a href="https://www.lemonde.fr/en/politics/article/2024/03/04/france-enshrines-freedom-to-abortion-in-constitution-in-world-first_6584252_5.html">right to abortion into the country’s constitution</a>. While crowds celebrated outside, the slogan “my body my choice” was projected onto the Eiffel Tower <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/06/france-abortion-rights-emmanuel-macron">in giant letters</a>.</p>
<p>Although concerns about <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2024/03/05/france-protects-abortion-guaranteed-freedom-constitution">barriers and access</a> still remain, women in France are now guaranteed the right to an abortion up to 14 weeks into their pregnancy, mirroring Spain but still <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/03/01/france-expands-abortion-access-two-key-moves">well behind</a> Sweden’s 18 weeks and the 24 weeks allowed in The Netherlands.</p>
<p>The decision comes at a time when women’s reproductive rights elsewhere are under threat. In contrast to the United States Supreme Court’s decision <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/24/us/roe-wade-overturned-supreme-court.html">overturning abortion rights</a>, France’s vote to enshrine them into its constitution looks like a feminist dream. </p>
<p>In his triumphant speech, French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal said: <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/04/world/europe/france-abortion-rights-constitution.html">“We are sending the message to all women: Your body belongs to you and no one has the right to control it in your stead.”</a> </p>
<p>Yet just last year, Attal, as education minister, banned Muslim girls from wearing <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/french-education-minister-announces-ban-on-islamic-dress-in-schools/">abayas in schools</a>. His message — and France’s — to Muslim girls and women seems to be the opposite.</p>
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<h2>Hijab bans</h2>
<p>France’s double standard on women’s rights is most plainly seen in its treatment of Muslim women and girls. A week after its historic abortion vote, France marks 20 years since the adoption of the <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000000417977">March 2004 law</a> that bans students in public schools from wearing conspicuous symbols or clothing that manifest a religious affiliation.</p>
<p>In principle, the 2004 law applies to all students and prohibits them from wearing religious symbols like crosses, kippas (yarmulkes) and hijabs. But in practice, it is a sexist and racist law that <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">disproportionately targets Muslim girls</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://yorkspace.library.yorku.ca/items/a9fd3c25-946c-4486-8dd5-5d9d13da4a34">My doctoral research</a> showed how Muslim girls are racially and religiously profiled by school administrators and have been suspended or expelled for wearing hoodies, hats, <a href="https://www.liberation.fr/societe/2013/04/04/la-jupe-et-le-bandeau-lettre-a-sirine_893735/">headbands</a> and <a href="https://www.cairn.info/islamophobie-comment-les-elites-francaises--9782707189462.htm">even long skirts</a>. Last year, they were also <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/bo/2023/Hebdo32/MENG2323654N">banned from wearing abayas</a>, which are long garments that are worn over clothing.</p>
<p>In my research, I refer to these bans as “anti-veiling laws” because, although they speak of religious symbols in general, the primary motivation behind these is always Muslim women’s dress. </p>
<p>France’s law led other jurisdictions across Europe and North America to ban Muslim women’s attire in various contexts. <a href="https://www.justiceinitiative.org/uploads/0b300685-1b89-46e2-bcf6-7ae5a77cb62c/policy-brief-restrictions-on-muslim-women%27s-dress-03252022.pdf">A 2022 report</a> from the Open Society Justice Initiative found that out of the 27 European Union member countries, only five have never enacted, or attempted to enact, bans on veiling. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Québec holds the distinction of being the only province in Canada to implement a <a href="https://www.legisquebec.gouv.qc.ca/en/document/cs/l-0.3">ban on religious symbols</a>.</p>
<p>Former Québec Premier Pauline Marois cited the French law as being an <a href="https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/395252/pauline-marois-et-jean-marc-ayrault-sont-sur-la-meme-longueur-d-onde?">“inspiration”</a> for her government’s failed <a href="https://www.assnat.qc.ca/en/travaux-parlementaires/projets-loi/projet-loi-60-40-1.html?appelant=MC">Bill 60</a>, known as the Charter of Québec Values. That bill was a precursor to <a href="https://ccla.org/major-cases-and-reports/bill-21/">Québec’s Bill 21</a>, which bans teachers, judges, prosecutors, police officers and other officials in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols.</p>
<h2>Discrimination against Muslim women</h2>
<p>Even though the laws are worded neutrally, claiming to defend abstract principles like secularism, religious neutrality, gender equality or “<a href="https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/fre#%7B%22itemid%22:%5B%22001-145466%22%5D%7D">living together</a>,” in practice they are <a href="https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/behind-the-veil-9781788970846.html">mostly applied to Muslim women’s attire</a>.</p>
<p>Human rights groups like <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/eur21/7280/2023/en/">Amnesty International</a> and the <a href="https://ccieurope.org/report2023/">Collective Against Islamophobia in Europe</a> have demonstrated that the surveillance, suspension and expulsion of Muslim girls at school have led to a decrease in their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055420000106">educational and employment outcomes</a>. </p>
<p>In addition to <a href="https://ccieurope.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/report-ccie-2023.pdf">increasing discrimination</a> against them, these bans also violate their right to education without discrimination, a right that is upheld in several international treaties, including the United Nations <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child">Convention on the Rights of the Child</a>.</p>
<p>However, the most insidious aspect of France’s 2004 law is how it has been used to justify even further restrictions on the rights of Muslim women and girls, such as women wearing <a href="https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000022911670">face veils or niqabs</a>, mothers wishing to accompany their children on <a href="https://www.education.gouv.fr/circulaire-preparation-rentree-2012?cid_bo=59726">school outings</a> and <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20230629-top-court-rules-in-favour-of-hijab-ban-in-french-women-s-football">women athletes</a> who <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/03/france-ensure-muslim-women-and-girls-can-play-sports/">wear hijab</a>. </p>
<p>In fact, Muslim women are routinely told to take off their clothes or to wear less clothing, even in places or contexts where they legally have the right to wear whatever they want, including at <a href="https://doi.org/10.13169/islastudj.4.1.0101">public beaches</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-61883529">swimming pools</a>.</p>
<h2>Body sovereignty</h2>
<p>This brings us back to the issue of a woman’s right to make decisions about her own body. Access to abortion is an important right for women everywhere, but women’s rights extend beyond abortion.</p>
<p>The concept of body sovereignty was developed by Indigenous feminists and activists, and refers to a person’s autonomy over their own body as well as to their <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2017.1366179">relationship to land</a>, <a href="https://www.adiosbarbie.com/2016/01/a-critical-conversation-with-sheena-roetman-on-body-sovereignty-and-justice/">belief systems</a> and ways of being that are <a href="https://www.journal.mai.ac.nz/system/files/MAI_Jrnl_2020_V9_2_Gillon_FINAL.pdf">intersectional</a>, <a href="https://ro.uow.edu.au/jgi/vol1/iss1/4">sexually diverse</a>, non-Eurocentric, non-ableist and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1440783319893506">non-fatist</a>. It includes everything from diet, clothing, sexual activity and beauty ideals to reproductive health and freedom from violence.</p>
<p>Anti-veiling laws discriminate against Muslim women and girls, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.32.1.05">encourage violence against them</a> and undermine the principle of body sovereignty.</p>
<p>Feminists and pro-choice activists everywhere should pause and think about what it means for governments to guarantee abortion rights to women while denying them the more expansive concept of body sovereignty. If feminists and their allies are outraged when theocratic regimes impose religious dress on women, they should be similarly outraged when democratic governments also restrict what women can wear: these are two sides of the same coin. </p>
<p>Both undermine women’s freedom, body sovereignty and self-determination. It is time for feminists everywhere to demand an end to laws that force women to dress one way or another, regardless of where in the world they are enacted.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/225418/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roshan Arah Jahangeer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As France enshrines abortion rights in its constitution, the country’s ban on wearing religious symbols in schools turns 20 years old.Roshan Arah Jahangeer, Postdoctoral Researcher, Memorial University of NewfoundlandLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2197862024-02-01T23:03:34Z2024-02-01T23:03:34ZGirls in hijab experience overlapping forms of racial and gendered violence<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570251/original/file-20240118-27-ltadts.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=308%2C625%2C5251%2C3075&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Violence against girls who wear hijabs is often situated in structural oppression, including gendered Islamophobia and white supremacy.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/girls-in-hijab-experience-overlapping-forms-of-racial-and-gendered-violence" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p><a href="https://worldhijabday.com/">World Hijab Day</a> recognizes the millions of Muslim women and girls who wear the traditional Islamic headscarf.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/europe/un-hijab-olympics-intl/index.html">Around the world</a>, Muslim girls in hijab are experiencing unique forms and <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/hamilton/islamophobia-canada-health-care-muslim-1.6792148">heightened rates</a> of gender and race-based <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/9549134/ttc-islamophobia-nccm-police-toronto/">violence and discrimination</a>. Overt violence against girls and women in hijab have captured global attention, evidenced most recently in the violent Canadian attacks on <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/community-groups-join-calls-for-further-action-in-attack-on-two-women-1.5839402">women in hijabs in Alberta</a> and the horrific <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/london/it-s-been-6-months-since-members-of-the-afzaal-family-in-london-ont-were-killed-what-s-changed-1.6274751">murders of the Afzaal family in London, Ont.</a></p>
<p>Violence against hijabi girls is often situated in structural oppression, including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680600788503">gendered Islamophobia</a> and white supremacy. Understanding the underpinnings of this violence is key to imagining more just and equitable futures for girls and young women in hijab.</p>
<h2>Islamophobia</h2>
<p>The term Islamophobia has often been used and understood in different ways. While often used interchangeably, some have argued that the term anti-Muslim racism, rather than the term Islamophobia, better encapsulates the systemic nature of anti-Muslim hate and violence.</p>
<p>Sociologist and Muslim studies scholar Jasmin Zine <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/48696287">has outlined how Islamophobia in Canada is comprised of systemic oppressive networks</a> and industries that are both fueled by and fuel anti-Muslim racism. Zine explains that an “industry behind purveying anti-Muslim hate” distinguishes Islamophobia from other forms of oppression.</p>
<p>According to Zine, this well-funded, lucrative and often transnational industry is comprised of media outlets, political figures and donors, white nationalist groups, think tanks, influencers and ideologues that support and engage in “activities that demonize and marginalize Islam and Muslims in Canada.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C6000%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A young girl in a pink hijab watches a sunset" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C6000%2C3943&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/568512/original/file-20240109-25-pd0nip.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Understanding the underpinnings of violence is key to creating more just and equitable futures for girls and young women in hijab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Gendered Islamophobia</h2>
<p>Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism is part of the fabric of institutions. Critics of laws such as <a href="https://doi.org/10.3138/cjwl.32.1.05">Bill 21 in Québec</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2013.738821">similar measures in France</a> have argued that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/muslim-women-most-affected-by-quebec-s-secularism-law-court-of-appeal-hears-1.6644377">Muslim women who wear the hijab are most affected</a>. These measures reflect narratives that <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/books/9780674088269">position Muslim girls and women as oppressed victims</a> in need of rescue, as well as <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.ca/books/159783/orientalism-by-edward-w-said/9780394740676">Orientalist tropes</a> in the form of the <a href="https://assertjournal.com/index.php/assert/article/view/31/62">“save us from the Muslim girl” narratives</a>.</p>
<p>As Muslim women in hijab, we grieve horrific violence alongside our communities. Violent attacks highlight how anti-Muslim racism is often situated at a nexus of anti-Black racism, xenophobia, white supremacy and patriarchy. </p>
<p>We know that anti-Muslim violence is often aimed at girls and women in hijab. Yet, academic literature on hijabi girlhood is relatively scarce. Two years ago, we put out <a href="http://journals.berghahnbooks.com/_uploads/ghs/GHS_cfp_TheGirlInTheHijab.pdf">a call to the international academic community</a> seeking papers and creative submissions on the experiences of girls and young women in hijabs.</p>
<h2>The girl in the hijab</h2>
<p>Two years later, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160302">our new special issue</a>, called <em>The Girl in the Hijab</em>, has now been published in the international journal <em>Girlhood Studies</em>. It comes at a time when anti-Muslim, anti-Arab and <a href="https://www.canarablaw.org/s/Anti-Palestinian-Racism-Naming-Framing-and-Manifestations.pdf">anti-Palestinian racism</a> are on <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/local-news/muslim-groups-report-skyrocketing-number-of-islamophobic-incidents-across-canada">the rise around the country</a> and around the world.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/girlhood-studies/16/3/girlhood-studies.16.issue-3.xml">The special issue</a> includes academic articles written by mostly Muslim women and creative works produced by hijab-wearing girls themselves. Both types of work provide insight into the current global landscape of hijabi girl experiences. </p>
<p>Cultural politics lecturer <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160303">Noha Beydoun explores the events surrounding the donning of the American flag as a method of protest</a>. She finds that this phenomenon gained popularity because it worked to conceal complicated U.S. histories regarding Muslim immigration and broader imperial interests. Beydoun’s analysis evidences that the “American flag as hijab for girls and women reinforces the larger constructs it seeks to resist.”</p>
<p>Gender studies professor Ana Carolina Antunes highlights <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160305">how unconscious bias and microaggressions hinder a positive sense of belonging among hijab-wearing students and impacts their academic success</a>. This study also reveals that anti-Muslim sentiment in schools affects the everyday experiences of Muslim girls, leading to disconnection from the school community. </p>
<p>Among the central themes in the special issue is <a href="https://assertjournal.com/index.php/assert/article/view/31/62">how women and girls resist gendered and Islamophobic discrimination in their everyday lives</a>. Hijabi girls resist oppressive narratives through their everyday actions and activist engagements. In Antunes’s study, girls asserted their right to occupy space in the educational environment.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/islamophobia-in-schools-how-teachers-and-communities-can-recognize-and-challenge-its-harms-162992">Islamophobia in schools: How teachers and communities can recognize and challenge its harms</a>
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<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A girl in a black hijab with a handbag walks down a tree-lined path" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/570252/original/file-20240118-20-old0n0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">For Muslim women, donning the hijab can be an act of resistance and resilience in the face of discrimination.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Shutterstock)</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>Clinical social workers Amilah Baksh and her mother, Bibi Baksh, provide insight into their <a href="https://doi.org/10.3167/ghs.2023.160306">lived experiences as Indo-Caribbean social workers and university educators</a>. In their article, they identify the hijab as a form of resistance and resilience in their personal and professional lives. In their words, “it was never the hijab that rendered us voiceless. It is Islamophobia.”</p>
<p>The special issue highlights how Muslim girls and women, racialized through donning hijab, continue to be at the forefront of the struggle against Islamophobia and anti-Muslim violence, even as we remain among the primary targets of that violence.</p>
<p>The articles in this special issue demonstrate the need for better policies, education and laws that consider the unique experiences of girls and women in hijab. To counter violence against girls and women in hijab, we must name and understand the complexities of anti-Muslim racism and gendered Islamophobia. </p>
<p>Critically, this must center the voices of girls and women in hijab, opening or widening spaces for girls and women in hijab to practise acts of resistance in ways that are not bound by colonial logics and respectability politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/219786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Salsabel Almanssori receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC).</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Muna Saleh receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) Insight Development Grant (2022-2024) for her research titled “A Narrative Inquiry into the Curriculum-Making Experiences of Palestinian Muslim Youth and Families in Alberta.”</span></em></p>Around the world, Muslim girls who wear hijabs are experiencing unique forms and heightened rates of gender and race-based violence.Salsabel Almanssori, Adjunct Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, University of WindsorMuna Saleh, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Education, Concordia University of EdmontonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2135142023-11-16T13:19:33Z2023-11-16T13:19:33ZWomen’s activism in Iran continues, despite street protests dying down in face of state repression<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559153/original/file-20231113-17-zs1f9a.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">An Iranian woman not wearing a mandatory headscarf walks past a group of young women who cover their hair in November 2023. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/young-iranian-woman-without-wearing-a-mandatory-headscarf-news-photo/1761137953?adppopup=true">Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images </a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Large-scale protests that erupted in 2022 across Iran, <a href="https://theconversation.com/iranian-women-keep-up-the-pressure-for-real-change-but-will-broad-public-support-continue-191631">centering on women’s rights</a>, captured the world’s attention. </p>
<p>Iranians peacefully protested in the streets of places ranging from Tehran to small towns across the country, chanting, “Woman, life, freedom.” The protests reflected many Iranians’ growing frustration with the political regime in power since 1979 – and its ongoing violation of citizens’ basic rights, especially those of women and other historically marginalized groups. </p>
<p>While the latest wave of street protests dwindled by the first few months of 2023, nonviolent protests for freedom, democracy and equality have a long history in Iran and continue today. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.usip.org/publications/2023/10/iranian-human-rights-activist-wins-nobel-peace-prize">Nobel Peace Prize committee</a> <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/jailed-iranian-activist-narges-mohammadi-wins-2023-nobel-peace-prize-2023-10-06/">granted its 2023 prize to Narges Mohammadi</a>, a prominent and currently imprisoned women’s rights advocate in Iran. This recognized popular resistance to Iran’s authoritarian regime. </p>
<p>As a scholar of women’s rights in Muslim cultures, I have <a href="https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-women-s-political-representation-in-iran-and-turkey.html">documented women’s political activism</a> in Iran and other Middle Eastern countries. My research shows that even when women are not demonstrating en masse in the streets, they consistently fight against gender discrimination, often at their own peril. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="People march in the streets near a tipped over bin that appears on fire or is smoking." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559156/original/file-20231113-21-gu5lff.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=425&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">People demonstrate in Tehran in September 2022 to protest the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Jhina Amini, a woman who was arrested and killed for improperly covering her hair in Tehran.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-gather-in-protest-against-the-death-of-mahsa-amini-news-photo/1426271236?adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Understanding women’s rights in Iran</h2>
<p>In 1979, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-iranian-revolution-a-timeline-of-events/">Iran underwent a major political</a> revolution after protesters toppled the country’s long-standing secular monarchy. </p>
<p>In its place, conservative clerics established an Islamic government. One key feature of the new government was greatly restricting women’s rights, such as forcing all women to appear in public with a proper hijab, or a modest form of dress that covers their hair and body, while only their face and hands are uncovered. Although many Iranian women <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/03/iran-protests-hijab-women-mahsa-amini/">protested mandatory hijab</a>, by 1981 the new Iranian government began to enforce it. </p>
<p>Today, women and teen girls in Iran who appear in public with improper hijab, or showing parts of their hair or body, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-hijab-women-politics-protests-6e07fae990369a58cb162eb6c5a7ab2a">risk punishment</a>, ranging from monetary fines to imprisonment. </p>
<p>Iranian women have been campaigning against such discriminatory laws by <a href="https://www.wluml.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Hoodfar-Against-all-odds-womens-mvmt-in-Iran.pdf">publicly demanding their rights</a> from the regime throughout the years. </p>
<p>Women’s protests resulted in a few legal changes, like the government recognizing women’s rights to get custody of their children in some circumstances, or establishing some grounds for women to ask for a divorce. </p>
<p>But women and girls continue to have few rights compared with men and routinely experience gender discrimination in Iran. </p>
<h2>The 2022 Iran protests</h2>
<p>The latest round of women-led protests in Iran erupted after police killed a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman named Mahsa Jhina Amini in September 2022. Police officers beat her while she was in custody for allegedly violating the mandatory hijab laws. </p>
<p>For months, women led <a href="https://www.rebelnews.ie/2023/09/12/iran-one-year-on-from-the-women-life-freedom-protests/">the vast majority of the protests</a> across Iran, risking their lives and freedom.</p>
<p>Within the first five months of the protests, police imprisoned <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/02/05/1154584532/iran-acknowledges-it-has-detained-tens-of-thousands-in-recent-protests">nearly 20,000 activists and protesters</a>. While the <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/iran-announces-pardoning-of-more-than-22000-arrested-during-protests">majority of the protesters</a> were later <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-protests-arrested-pardons-mahsa-amini-ae3c45c6bcc883900ff1b1e83f85df95">pardoned and released</a>, an unknown number still remain behind bars. </p>
<p>The protests also resulted in police killing at least <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/announcement/documentary-inside-iranian-uprising/">500 individuals</a>, many of them children.</p>
<h2>Shifts in Iranian protests</h2>
<p>While these mass protests have died down, political activism in the name of equality and freedom in Iran remains vibrant and active – it has just taken on different forms. </p>
<p>One new dimension to Iran’s women rights movement is that widely recognized, imprisoned female activists continue to <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/jailed-iranian-womens-activist-smuggles-out-letter-thanks-nobel-peace-prize-2023-10-31/">leak statements</a> and <a href="https://iranwire.com/en/politics/110408-like-purgatory-audio-leak-exposes-inhumane-conditions-for-iranian-female-prisoners/">voice recordings</a>, decrying their conditions in prison and encouraging activists to keep up their work. </p>
<p>Discussions about women’s rights activism are also increasingly happening in private forums on Telegram, WhatsApp channels and other social media platforms. </p>
<p>Women also continue to quietly engage in civil disobedience – although this comes with its own risks. </p>
<p>One example is Iranian women simply not covering their hair when they appear in public. One 2023 report estimates that at least <a href="https://nowthisnews.com/news/a-year-after-jina-mahsa-aminis-death-iranian-women-are-brazenly-defying-hijab-law">20% of Iranian women</a> defy Iran’s mandatory hijab laws.</p>
<p>In October 2023, Iran’s notorious morality police beat and killed 17-year-old <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/iranian-girl-armita-geravand-hospitalized-morality-police-rcna118787">Armita Geravand</a> after she appeared unveiled on her way to school. </p>
<p>Other women are refusing to back down, despite Iran banning <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-education-refused-without-hijab/32347464.html">female students and faculty with improper hijab</a> from entering university campuses or receiving their course credits or degrees.</p>
<p>One Tehran university faculty member described to me how she covered her hair, but not with a maghnaeh, the state-mandated form of hijab that drapes over hair and shoulders, tightening around the face. </p>
<p>“I cover my hair, but not with a maghnaeh, rather with a loose headscarf. I am determined to appear as so and to support my students. I am not alone in dressing this way,” this woman said. </p>
<p>Iranian authorities have been debating another <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/sep/13/irans-gender-apartheid-bill-could-jail-women-for-10-years-for-not-wearing-hijab">controversial bill</a> that would make punishments for women who defy the hijab laws more severe. </p>
<p>The new bill authorizes use of facial recognition and social media surveillance to identify and punish women who do not observe the hijab as mandated by the conservative authorities.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Narges Mohammadi wears a yellow shirt and has a big smile as she sits at a table with flowers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=429&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/559155/original/file-20231113-19-f8s2lx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=539&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The jailed Iranian women’s rights advocate Narges Mohammadi, pictured in 2021 while not in prison, won the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize for her ‘fight against the oppression of women in Iran and her fight to promote human rights and freedom for all.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/tehran-iran-narges-mohammadi-a-jailed-iranian-womens-rights-news-photo/1708936302?adppopup=true">Reihan Taravati/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Women abroad support Iranian activism</h2>
<p>Iranian women and human rights activists living abroad have also been active in organizing conferences, workshops and podcasts on supporting pro-democratic uprisings inside Iran. </p>
<p>As one Iranian women’s rights activist based in the United States recently explained, “The Iranian women’s rights movement currently benefits from dual forms of activism: one inside Iran and the other by the Iranian diaspora.” </p>
<p>Since the 2022 protests, women’s rights advocates inside and outside of the country have formed stronger networks. </p>
<p>These advocates have positioned women’s rights and gender equality as key demands for the future of Iran, as some feminists outlined in a recently published <a href="https://www.iwbr.org/copy-of-persian-home">Iran Women’s Bill of Rights</a>.</p>
<h2>State backlash against protests</h2>
<p>The Iranian regime, meanwhile, has tried to ward off any kind of dissent.</p>
<p>Just weeks prior to the one-year anniversary of Amini’s killing and planned memorial events, Iranian authorities preemptively arrested <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/iran-arrests-womens-rights-activists-ahead-woman-life/story?id=102334170">several women’s rights defenders</a> in August 2023. The authorities appeared to fear new street protests. </p>
<p>The government <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/16/middleeast/mahsa-amini-father-detained-anniversary-intl/index.html">has also pressured the families of killed protestors</a> to refrain from holding any memorial services. The rationale is that such gatherings would lead to more protests. </p>
<p>These government crackdowns on women’s rights defenders and any potential protests show the strength and viability of the Iranian women’s rights movement.</p>
<p>As the previous decades of resistance demonstrate, women’s nonviolent activism for democracy and freedom will continue, despite state violence.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/213514/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mona Tajali is affiliated with the transnational feminist solidarity network Women Living Under Muslim Laws (WLUML). </span></em></p>Iranian women are still pressing for women’s rights and equality, just in quieter forms, including not wearing mandatory hair covers. Imprisoned activists are also leaking messages to others.Mona Tajali, Associate Professor of International Relations and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Agnes Scott CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2126612023-09-15T10:40:23Z2023-09-15T10:40:23ZMahsa Amini: a year into the protest movement in Iran, this is what’s changed<p>Iran’s rulers continue to enforce tight public controls as the anniversary of the death of <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-mahsa-amini-death-rallying-cry-iran-protests/32591019.html">Mahsa Amini</a> in the custody of the “morality police” approaches.</p>
<p>Amini died after being arrested for allegedly breaching hijab rules. The news of her death prompted <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/iran-mahsa-amini-anniversary-protests-movement-failed-why">nationwide protests</a>, jolting the foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-hijab-protests-one-year-anniversary-amini-irgc/32531498.html">Ahead of the expected protests</a> on the <a href="https://crisis24.garda.com/alerts/2023/09/iran-protests-marking-death-anniversary-of-mahsa-amini-likely-nationwide-sept-16">anniversary of her death </a>
on September 16, the regime continues to attempt to control <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-restricts-access-instagram-netblocks-2022-09-21/">social media</a> and heighten <a href="https://techmonitor.ai/technology/cybersecurity/iran-protests-spyware-mobile-phone-tracking">surveillance</a>.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-protesters-want-regime-change">the desire for change</a> has not waned among many. </p>
<h2>How protests took hold</h2>
<p>The state’s reaction to the Women, Life, Freedom protests that broke out in reaction to Amini’s death has been predictably draconian. Sources suggest hundreds have been killed, a staggering nearly 30,000 <a href="https://www.en-hrana.org/statistical-report-on-human-rights-in-iran-for-the-year-1401-hijri/">detained</a> , and a spate of <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/international/executions-around-the-world">executions</a> have been carried out.</p>
<p>Just as troubling are the tales emerging from the shadows, stories of detainees facing unspeakable horrors, from torture to <a href="https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-04/2023%20Factsheet%20SGBV%20Iran.pdf">rape</a>. </p>
<p>Although the ruling elite’s ongoing struggle to enforce the compulsory hijab appears <a href="https://www.institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/protests-and-polling-insights-streets-iran-how-removal-hijab-became-symbol-regime-change">futile</a>, the regime is showing <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/raisi-says-hijab-is-law-iran-unveiled-women-face-yoghurt-attack-2023-04-01/">no signs of conceding</a>.</p>
<p>The mandatory hijab, an issue for the past four decades, continues to be extremely contentious. Despite the dangers, numerous women, in acts of quiet defiance, choose to reject this <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/what-has-changed-iran-one-year-since-mahsa-amini-protests-erupted-2023-09-11/">enforced code daily</a>. Their courage is met with intensified <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/7/16/irans-morality-police-return-as-authorities-enforce-hijab-rule">street patrols</a>, <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/iran-protests-defiant-mahsaamini-protesters-push-back-against-strengthened-morality-polices-hijab-patrols-12926721">hostile confrontations</a> and <a href="https://time.com/6305813/iran-hijab-laws-stricter/">looming new laws</a>that threaten even stricter penalties.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-iran-and-beyond-arrests-of-singers-and-dancers-show-how-music-can-be-a-powerful-tool-of-resistance-210165">In Iran and beyond, arrests of singers and dancers show how music can be a powerful tool of resistance</a>
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<p>There seems to be an underlying fear within the governing circles that relinquishing control over something as ostensibly trivial as women’s hair might set a precedent, leading to a more significant <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/why-iran-s-hardliners-are-tightening-enforcement-of-hijab-/30085512.html">loss of control</a> in other areas of governance and social life.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/violence-irans-uprising-what-happens-if-either-side-escalates">Sources suggest</a> that in an effort to sustain an aura of omnipotence, the regime is willing to do whatever it takes to maintain its grip on every aspect of life in Iran. The governing philosophy that would seem to lean more towards instilling fear rather than winning the hearts and minds of the people. </p>
<p>In the face of mounting economic challenges and the fact that <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202307250576">one third of the population</a> is living in extreme poverty, the Iranian people’s resilience, honed by years of resistance and a relentless <a href="https://www.institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/protests-and-polling-insights-streets-iran-how-removal-hijab-became-symbol-regime-change">yearning for change</a>, this perpetual battle resembles a drawn-out war of attrition between the state and the people.</p>
<p>But there is a deep-seated protest movement in Iran, anchored in years of <a href="https://iranwire.com/en/women/115359-the-power-of-civil-disobedience-against-the-islamic-republic/">civil disobedience</a>, symbolic actions, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/gallery/2023/sep/11/the-expressions-of-dissent-and-art-from-the-womens-protests-in-iran-in-pictures">resistance art</a> and immense sacrifice. There’s clearly still an <a href="https://gamaan.org/2022/03/31/political-systems-survey-english/">appetite for change</a>.</p>
<p>However, the path to change is fraught with obstacles. The opposition, despite its passion, is <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e1fe40ca-f119-493c-8389-e56a229fbe71">fragmented</a>, lacking leadership to pull together collective efforts. There are few well organised opposition parties outside the country. </p>
<p>Over the past six months, there have been significant disputes about whether Iran should reinstate a constitutional <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/iran-exiled-crown-prince-reza-pahlavi-revolution-regime-change/101961372">monarchy</a> or continue with a republican system. Instead of focusing on the common enemy, they disagree over what should replace the current rulers. </p>
<p>This absence of a cohesive front makes garnering substantial international support challenging, especially when the regime leans on authoritarian allies such as <a href="https://iranwire.com/en/technology/115074-report-russia-provides-iran-with-digital-surveillance-capabilities/">Russia</a> to enhance its surveillance and repressive capacities. It would appear the regime is equipped and willing to employ every available means to mute the populace, amplifying the risks and costs associated with dissent. </p>
<h2>Where did it all start?</h2>
<p>From its beginnings in 1979, the Islamic Republic of Iran’s unaccountable and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/made-by-history/2022/09/26/iranian-women-uprising-against-oppression-history/">overzealous plans</a> to reshape and redefine Iranian society have been opposed by many. The decades that followed saw an <a href="https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/iranians-turn-away-from-the-islamic-republic/">increasing chasm</a> between the people and the regressive clerical establishment. </p>
<p>Misuse of power, <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/corruption-sanctions-mismangement-iran/">corruption</a>, catastrophic <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/theres-a-forex-market-crisis-in-iran-the-root-cause-of-its-problems-is-the-clerical-establishment/">economic policies</a> and the unabashed use of violence have methodically <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/middle-east/iran-crisis-legitimacy-mass-protests-ailing-leader">whittled away</a> the revolutionary “allure” of the regime. </p>
<p>Over the years, Iran has been no stranger to protests. But while the <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/remembering-the-july-1999-iran-student-movement-a-forgotten-protest-/30716685.html">student protests</a> of 1999 and the <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/iran/irans-green-movement-never-went-away">Green movement</a> of 2009 were significant chapters in Iranian history, the <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03068374.2020.1712889">post-2018</a> period witnessed a tectonic shift. </p>
<p>Protests are no longer confined to urban centres – they’re nationwide, audacious and challenge the very core of the Islamic Republic’s ideology. The Women, Life, Freedom movement, with its lasting impact and international spotlight, stands as a testament to this change.</p>
<p>In recent months, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/05/world/middleeast/iran-hijab-law-businesses.html">cafes and restaurant have closed</a> and businesses have been accused of flouting the state’s stringent policies. <a href="https://www.timeshighereducation.com/news/scholars-fear-hiring-drive-foreshadows-purge-iranian-sector">Universities</a> aren’t spared either. </p>
<p>An unsettling purge is under way, with university professors being replaced by <a href="https://www.newarab.com/news/second-cultural-revolution-comes-irans-universities">regime loyalists</a>, while campuses including <a href="https://iranhumanrights.org/2023/06/students-arrested-and-banished-professors-fired-in-latest-state-crackdown-in-iran/">Tehran University</a> have become heavily surveilled zones. Add to this <a href="https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2023/01/suicide-rates-rise-iran-economic-conditions-grow-more-dire">economic conditions</a> that are so bad it is pushing people to suicide, and societal tensions reach a boiling point. </p>
<p>Over the recent months leading up to the anniversary, momentum has been building. Several high-profile <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202309120148">opposition figures</a> have urged the public to seize this opportunity and once again take to the streets to defy the regime.</p>
<p>This atmosphere of simmering unrest hasn’t escaped the regime’s notice. An <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde13/7084/2023/en/">Amnesty International report</a> offers a glimpse into the state’s systematic harassment of families mourning their lost loved ones. Among those arrested was <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2023/09/08/middleeast/mahsa-amini-uncle-arrested-intl/index.html">Mahsa Amini’s uncle</a>. Covering an extensive ten provinces, Amnesty’s research details human rights violations against numerous victim’s families, showing the extent of the government’s oppressive reach prior to the anniversary of Mahsa’s death.</p>
<p>One of the significant achievements of last year’s uprising was the <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/fear-of-the-regime-is-eroding-in-iran/">shattering of pervasive fear</a> among the people. Despite the sombre atmosphere, violent crackdowns and execution of young protesters, the Women, Life, Freedom movement has fostered a collective courage to defy the regime. </p>
<p>In anticipation of the anniversary, <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202309103059">both sides have been bracing themselves</a>. People are gearing up for a potential resurgence of protests, while the state is preparing to suppress any sign of dissent.</p>
<p>Many hope the political stalemate will not last indefinitely. While the move towards democracy may span years, the desperate desire for change must, surely, shift the prevailing order.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/212661/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Afshin Shahi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>People are gearing up for a potential resurgence of protests, while the state is preparing to suppress any sign of dissent.Afshin Shahi, Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Middle East Politics & International Relations at Keele University, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2079542023-06-19T11:01:18Z2023-06-19T11:01:18ZIranian protesters remain defiant in the face of violent and brutal regime oppression<p>The vibrant, brave and unyielding voice of dissent remains strong in Iran despite months of brutal repression by the clerical regime. </p>
<p>The “women, life, freedom” movement is an insistent call for change that is meeting the Islamic Republic head-on with resilient defiance. Even as violence curbs the outward signs of protest, the movement is very much alive, boldly innovating to challenge the regime.</p>
<p>The government, desperately holding on to its dwindling authority, continues its ruthless crackdown, employing a politics of fear to maintain a shaky status quo. It is predictably fighting back with all the grim weapons at its disposal.</p>
<p>For more than four decades, Iran has made liberal use of the death penalty. After China, Iran has the <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/international/executions-around-the-world">highest number of executions in the world</a>. </p>
<p>But since the protests began after a 22-year-old woman, <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-challenge-legitimacy-of-islamic-republic-191958">Mahsa Amini</a>, was murdered by the morality police last September for wearing her hijab “improperly”, there has been a worrying surge in executions. In the first five months of 2023, the Islamic Republic executed more than 300 people, <a href="https://hengaw.net/en/news/2023/06/142-prisoners-executed-in-iran-during-may-2023">142 in May alone</a>.</p>
<p>Accused death penalty prisoners <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2023/03/iran-chilling-execution-spree-with-escalating-use-of-death-penalty-against-persecuted-ethnic-minorities/">rarely get a fair trial</a>, in clear breach of international law. The principal method of execution in Iran is hanging, mainly in private, although the regime knows the chilling effect of killing their condemned in public. In December, protester <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/12/iran-public-execution-of-majidreza-rahnavard-exposes-authorities-revenge-killings/">Majidreza Rahnavard</a> was hanged publicly in Mashhad while a group of people looked on.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Iranian activist Majidreza Rahnavard." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532499/original/file-20230618-15-dnqr6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/532499/original/file-20230618-15-dnqr6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532499/original/file-20230618-15-dnqr6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532499/original/file-20230618-15-dnqr6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=249&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532499/original/file-20230618-15-dnqr6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532499/original/file-20230618-15-dnqr6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/532499/original/file-20230618-15-dnqr6b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=313&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Majidreza Rahnavard was executed in December 2022, convicted with</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Amnesty International.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Despite the regime’s claim that half of this year’s executions were linked to narcotics-related offences, death penalties <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/">disproportionately target</a> ethnic and religious minorities who have faced significant repression over the past four decades. </p>
<p>The Islamic Republic uses state-sponsored murder to maintain a climate of fear. For months, millions of Iranians have woken up scared to check the news on their phones, fearing to hear about another young protester executed.</p>
<h2>State-sponsored rape</h2>
<p>In recent months, there have also been many reports about the <a href="https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/2023-04/2023%20Factsheet%20SGBV%20Iran.pdf">use of rape against male and female detainees</a>, a long-used tactic in the Islamic Republic’s prisons. Recently, the former director of the notorious Evin prison, Hossein Mortazavi, <a href="https://iranwire.com/en/news/117116-ex-official-virgin-prisoners-were-raped-to-prevent-them-going-to-paradise/#:%7E:text=from%20attaining%20paradise.-,Addressing%20an%20event%20held%20this%20week%20on%20the%20Clubhouse%20online,marry%20guards%20before%20their%20execution.">acknowledged</a> that in the 1980s, female prisoners who were still virgins were forcibly married to jailers before execution. </p>
<p>Clerics believed that if virgin girls were executed, they would go straight to heaven. So, they raped them in the form of forced marriage so that they would not die virgins. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2023/feb/06/iran-protesters-police-rapes-beatings-and-torture">Various testimonies</a> shed light on the sexual violence directed against those detained since the beginning of the uprising. Horrific practices like this may exacerbate the Islamic Republic’s crisis of legitimacy, but it can also make people think twice before taking to the streets.</p>
<h2>Mass arrests, many still in jail</h2>
<p>Nearly <a href="https://www.en-hrana.org/statistical-report-on-human-rights-in-iran-for-the-year-1401-hijri/">30,000 people were reportedly detained</a> for protesting, political activities or expressing opinions in the 12 months to the end of March.</p>
<p>Iran’s head of the judiciary announced on March 13 that 22,000 detainees <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-pardons-22000-people-who-took-part-protests-2023-03-13/">had been “pardoned” and released</a> in the previous six months. But he didn’t comment on the fate of at least 7,000 prisoners who remained in some of the most notorious prisons in the Middle East. </p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/U94sVHjz-vM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Rapper Tomaj Salehi arrested for lyrics criticising the regime.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>There has been very little news about influential detainees, including rapper <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-rapper-salehi-health-corruption-on-earth-/32150827.html">Toomaj Salehi</a>, who was arrested in October 2021.</p>
<p>On November 26 2022, Toomaj’s family expressed deep concern for his life, indicating that he had been tried in a closed-door proceeding. The following day, Iranian media disclosed that Salehi was indicted with “corruption on Earth,” a charge that could potentially result in a death sentence.</p>
<h2>Hardline approach failing to deter protest</h2>
<p>Iran’s hardline supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, has branded the protesters as “traitors” and rejected calls for constitutional reform, dismissing them as the demands of his “enemies”. In January he appointed the infamous former Revolutionary Guard commander <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-police-chief-radan/32213406.html">Ahmadreza Radan</a> as the country’s new police chief to increase the crackdown on protests. Radan has been blacklisted by the US and EU over rights abuses. </p>
<p>But despite the brutal repression, the women, life, freedom <a href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-june-12-2023">protests continue</a>. “Too many young lives have been lost in the past few months for us to go back to how things were before,” one woman <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-65842130">told the BBC</a> recently. </p>
<p>Social movements often use symbols to maintain their existence and relevance, particularly in oppressive political contexts. In Iran, removing headscarves has become one of the most important acts of resistance against a regime that still maintains versions of “morality policing” to confront women who do not wear a “proper” hijab. </p>
<p>Despite the regime’s pressure and the uncompromising supreme leader, many women defy the state and continue to return to the streets without the hijab, regardless of the consequences. The streets are now filled with <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattnovak/2023/04/08/iran-installs-cameras-for-morality-police-to-identify-women-defying-hijab-law/">facial recognition cameras</a> to identify women who defy the regime, but there is no sign of stepping back by the women.</p>
<p>There are also many instances of nonviolent resistance through music, dance and arts. Videos are circulating showing men and women spontaneously performing music and dancing in public. Women dancing in public is a red line for the Islamic Republic, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-dance-video-protest-punishment/32316927.html">yet they do it</a>. </p>
<p>Most social media platforms are blocked by the regime, But many Iranians use <a href="https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/11/06/iran-protests-vpn-use-soars-as-citizens-seek-way-around-internet-censorship#:%7E:text=To%20get%20around%20these%20restrictions,first%20week%20of%20the%20protests.">censorship-bypassing technology</a> (virtual private networks or VPNs) to go online to express dissent, boost solidarity and share inspiration. Despite all odds, the strength and resilience of the women, life, freedom movement continues to challenge the regime at every step with nonviolent resistance and cultural expression. </p>
<p>The movement’s refusal to back down, despite the increasing severity of the regime’s actions, demonstrates a remarkable resilience. The time bomb for the Islamic Republic is the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/many-young-iranians-lose-their-fear-struggle-freedom-2022-11-03/">young population</a>, many of whom are setting themselves in direct opposition to the Islamist regime in calling for change. </p>
<p>Indeed, change is something an overwhelming majority of Iranians say they want, <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202302036145">according to polling conducted last year</a>. And the resilience of the women, life, freedom protesters shows they are not afraid to put their lives on the line to fight for it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/207954/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Afshin Shahi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Iran’s savage use of executions and prisoner rape has failed to quell the “women, freedom, life” movement.Afshin Shahi, Associate Professor (Senior Lecturer) in Middle East Politics & International Relations at Keele University, Keele UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2004072023-03-27T19:55:55Z2023-03-27T19:55:55ZWhat does ‘secularism’ mean in the Iran protests?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516992/original/file-20230322-18-mqnqty.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C44%2C4980%2C3233&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iranian women protesting the death of Mahsa Amini gather outside the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, Turkey on Oct. 17, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/what-does--secularism--mean-in-the-iran-protests" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Since the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/events-iran-since-mahsa-aminis-arrest-death-custody-2022-10-05/">death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini in September 2022</a>, much has been said and written about the protests in Iran. Amini died while in the custody of Iran’s morality police. She was arrested for supposedly wearing her hijab incorrectly.</p>
<p>Her death triggered widespread protests against the morality police, the government and a host of other issues facing the country. A recurrent theme of discussion surrounding the protest movement has focused on its so-called secular nature.</p>
<h2>Why ‘secularism’ is problematic</h2>
<p>In December 2022 <em>TIME</em> magazine published a <a href="https://time.com/heroes-of-the-year-2022-women-of-iran/">piece written by Iranian-American writer Azadeh Moaveni</a> who characterized the uprising in Iran as educated, liberal and secular. Other commentators have pointed out that protesters have not used religious slogans. This differentiates this protest movement from previous ones. It is secular in nature and therefore, historically significant.</p>
<p>In January 2023 I attended a symposium at the University of Toronto called <em><a href="https://www.humanities.utoronto.ca/events/women-life-liberty-iran%E2%80%99s-democratic-future">Women, Life, Liberty: Iran’s democratic future</a></em> in which the protests were described by some commentators as secular. For example, in one of the panels called <em>A Charter of Rights for a Democratic and Pluralistic Iran</em>, secularism was described as one of the common demands of the Iranian people whether they joined the street protests or not.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman face away from the camera stands in front of a burning tire and raises her hand and makes a victory sign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516798/original/file-20230321-2335-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mahsa Amini’s death has triggered nation-wide protests in Iran against the government.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Middle East Images)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These kinds of statements are meant to demonstrate the extent to which the political regime is rejected by Iranians. The assumption underpinning this narrative is that the government’s ideology stands in opposition to the secular views of most Iranians.</p>
<p>One of the most important, and challenging, narratives on secularism is the belief that European secularism is a global tendency, and that secularism is incompatible with religion. </p>
<p>In the West, secularism is closely tied to the removal of religion from public spaces, and the decline in its influence on social and behavioural practices. For example, in France, the government has created a new <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/france-launches-new-body-aiming-to-reshape-islam/a-60671015">Forum on Islam</a> to reshape Islam in the country. The forum is made up of Muslim figures handpicked by the government. Examples like these are not about a separation of the state from religion. Rather they are about increasing the state’s control over religion and religious institutions.</p>
<p>However, using the term secularism, especially in this sense, does not necessarily help us understand what is happening in Iran today. These narratives are often based on conventional meaning of secularism. Consequently, they do not necessarily resonate well with the views and demands of Iranian people.</p>
<h2>Rejecting state control of religion</h2>
<p>The protests in Iran are about rejecting the state’s regulation of religiosity in public life, and not about rejecting religion in Iranian society.</p>
<p>Narratives that put secularism against religiosity contrast with the images and chants that have emerged from the protests in Iran. In November 2022 one <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/iran-protests-against-woman-s-death-in-hijab-case-spread-to-16-provinces-/6756363.html">video clip</a> from the protests showed women in <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/chador">chadors</a> marching on the streets chanting “Go ahead for revolution with or without hijab.” Western conceptions of secularism cannot explain images of chador-wearing women taking part in protests against the Iranian government.</p>
<p>But views on secularism in Iran vary considerably. Political scientist <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/secular-age-beyond-the-west/charles-taylors-a-secular-age-and-secularization-from-below-in-iran/35A07B00683E237A49AA7B7B97CEEE22">Nader Hashemi</a> argues that the desire for secularism has emerged within the civil society among intellectuals, Iranian youth and the urban middle class who are disillusioned with the government.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman in a face mask and sunglasses carries a sign that reads: women life freedom" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/516799/original/file-20230321-2329-blk3ma.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The protests in Iran are about rejecting the state’s regulation of religion and not about rejecting religion in Iranian society.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Middle East Images)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Iranian-American writer <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/iran-secular-shift-gamaan.html">Dina Nayeri</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/irans-secular-shift-new-survey-reveals-huge-changes-in-religious-beliefs-145253">and others</a> have argued that there is a decline of religious beliefs and practices among Iranians. In other words, that Iran is undergoing a process of secularization.</p>
<p>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.mqup.ca/sacred-as-secular-products-9780228008477.php">sociologist Abdolmohammad Kazemipur</a> suggested that the state has gone through a secularization process for pragmatic reasons. He states that in post-revolution Iran, the state itself has moved to a more secular political philosophy as a pragmatic response to political pressures.</p>
<p>The types of people and groups that have been involved in the protests suggest that the movement transcends debates around secularism versus religion. The protests were sparked by the morality police’s treatment of Amini. But many <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-unions-and-civil-rights-groups-demand-democracy-and-social-justice-201422">other issues</a> have been raised by protesters including corruption, alarming unemployment, failed international policies and oppression of minorities.</p>
<p>Protests have also taken place in <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20230316-iran-s-baloch-population-lead-anti-regime-protests-six-months-after-mahsa-amini-s-death">Sistan and Baluchestan</a>, a southeastern province populated by many Sunnis. Those protests have received support from the local Sunni <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/iran-molavi-abdolhamid-anti-establishment-sunni-cleric">Imam Molavi Abdolhamid</a>.</p>
<p>A <a href="https://theconversation.com/irans-secular-shift-new-survey-reveals-huge-changes-in-religious-beliefs-145253">recent study</a> shows considerable change in Iranians’ religiosity. Around 40 per cent of the participants still self-identified as Muslim and 78 per cent said they believed in God. The study also showed that 72 per cent of participants are against mandatory hijab laws.</p>
<p>Religion still remains an important dimension of Iranian life. And religious segments of Iranian society have been expressing their solidarity with the protests.</p>
<p>How can we make sense of these facts about the situation in Iran? Secularism as a label cannot fully explain the ongoing situation in Iran. Instead, the protest movement in Iran is a rejection of the state’s control over how people express their religious beliefs.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200407/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roodabeh Dehghani does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Narratives that pit secular protesters against a religious regime do not necessarily explain the protests in Iran or what they are calling for.Roodabeh Dehghani, PhD candidate, L’Université d’Ottawa/University of OttawaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2014222023-03-09T16:51:02Z2023-03-09T16:51:02ZIran: unions and civil rights groups demand democracy and social justice<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/514489/original/file-20230309-26-6uvxky.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C142%2C2066%2C1453&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women, life, freedom: protests against the oppression of Iranian women in Iran in Ottowa, Canada, September 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iran_Protests_%2852382844047%29.jpg">Taymaz Valley/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Forty-four years after Iranians rose up against their hated monarch in February 1979, a group of 20 organisations engaged in long-term social and economic struggles – including labour unions, teachers, women’s groups and youth and student movements – <a href="https://en.radiozamaneh.com/33695/">issued an ultimatum</a> to the government of the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>The Charter of Minimum Demands of Independent Trade Union and Civil Organisations of Iran contains 12 demands concerning social justice, democracy and political reform. The charter is a protest:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>against misogyny and gender-based discrimination, economic instability, the modern enslavement of the workforce, poverty, distress, class violence, and nationalist, centralist, and religious oppression. It is a revolution against any form of tyranny, whether it be under the pretext of religion or not; any form of tyranny that has been inflicted upon us, the majority of the people of Iran.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This charter represents the first organised and collective demand from within Iran since the explosion of unrest on Iranian streets after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-on-fire-once-again-women-are-on-the-vanguard-of-transformative-change-191297">death of Mahsa Amini</a> at the hands of the morality police in September 2022. </p>
<p>The push for transformation inside Iran stands in stark contrast to the attempts of some exiled Iranians who want to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-14/iran-exiled-crown-prince-reza-pahlavi-revolution-regime-change/101961372">reimpose the pre-1979 monarchy</a>.</p>
<p>The revolutionary movement that overthrew Mohammad Reza Shah, the last monarch of Iran, was a broad-based coalition of mostly urban working- and middle-class people. Supporters of the revolution were united by their opposition to the monarchy, but they were motivated by a range of ideologies: socialism, communism, liberalism, secularism, Islamism and nationalism.</p>
<p>These groups were also unified by their fierce opposition to Iran’s foreign policy that left it subordinate to the west. Deeply etched in Iranians’ collective memory is the fact that the monarchy had been reinstalled in 1953 after a <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-cia-toppled-iranian-democracy-81628">coup d’etat</a> against the democratically elected prime minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The coup had been orchestrated by the US and UK, who backed Mohammad Reza Shah throughout his brutal and oppressive reign, in return for control of Iran’s oil industry. </p>
<p>By the 1970s, brutal state oppression was accompanied by <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00181-023-02365-2">increasing inequality</a>. Poor living and working conditions provoked unrest that was met with further repression and Iran’s jails overflowed with political prisoners. </p>
<p>In January 1979, Mohammad Reza Shah and his family were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/jan/17/frenzied-rejoicing-in-iran-as-shah-leaves-archive-1979">forced into exile</a> by a broad-based revolutionary coalition. But the unity that succeeded in ousting the hated regime proved to be shortlived and the theocratic Islamic Republic was established under the leadership of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. </p>
<p>But a large segment of Iranian society that had supported the revolution staunchly opposed the Islamic Republic from the beginning. This opposition has remained firm to the present day and is represented in huge numbers in the street protests that have rocked Iran since the death of Amini.</p>
<p>Amini, a Kurdish Iranian, was visiting relatives in Tehran when she was arrested by the morality police for violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. Her death, after reportedly being brutally beaten while in custody, <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-reflect-society-wide-anger-at-regime-which-trashes-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-193773">provoked outrage across the country</a>. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-reflect-society-wide-anger-at-regime-which-trashes-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-193773">Iran: hijab protests reflect society-wide anger at regime which trashes rule of law and human rights</a>
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<p>In the protests that followed, many young women and men <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-is-using-every-effort-to-crush-protesters-intent-on-a-revolution-except-hearing-them-out-193684">have been killed</a> by security forces. Now the Islamic Republic faces the most serious challenge in its 44-year existence.</p>
<p>During the 1979 revolution, the hijab became a <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-veil-in-iran-has-been-an-enduring-symbol-of-patriarchal-norms-but-its-use-has-changed-depending-on-who-is-in-power-193689">symbol of resistance</a> to the Pahlavi monarchy and its commitment to “modernise” – in other words, westernise – Iranian society. Many women wore the headscarf as a protest against the imposition of western norms. </p>
<p>After the Islamic Republic took power the dress code for women became stricter. A month after the revolution – on March 8 1979, women launched <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-protests-in-iran-are-part-of-a-long-history-of-womens-resistance-191551">massive demonstrations</a> across Iran against what they saw as patriarchal oppression on the part of the new Islamic regime. However, the hijab became obligatory in 1983, by which time Iran was at war with Iraq.</p>
<p>So the hijab symbolises Iranian women’s struggle against control by both the monarchy and the theocracy. The killing of Amini in September 2022 was the trigger for the current wave of protests, but they are a manifestation of long-lasting repressive gender relations. It is opposition to deeply rooted patriarchal relations that brought women and girls onto the streets in their hundreds of thousands across almost every city and town.</p>
<p>While women led the demonstrations, many men offered support. The slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom”, which places women at the centre of the struggle, also calls for transformative changes in the economy (“life”) and politics (“freedom”). Like in 1979, the current protests enjoy support from diverse social groups. For many, this wave of demonstrations represents continuity with the 1979 revolution, and an opportunity to achieve the objectives that were undermined by the establishment of the Islamic Republic.</p>
<h2>Progressive revolution</h2>
<p>The 44th anniversary of the 1979 revolution marked a significant moment for which many Iranians have been longing. The <a href="https://en.radiozamaneh.com/33695/">new charter</a> calls for “an end to the formation of any kind of power from above and to start a social, progressive, and human revolution for the liberation of peoples from any form of tyranny, discrimination, colonisation, oppression, and dictatorship”. </p>
<p>The demands are broad-ranging. They include the freedom of all political prisoners, freedom of belief and expression, equality between men and women and improved wages and conditions for all workers. They demand the free participation of people in democracy through local and national councils and the redistribution of wealth and resources.</p>
<p>The charter provides the first draft of a vision for a new Iran. Its proclamation on the anniversary of the 1979 revolution makes a historical connection to that struggle and its anti-imperialist and anti-dictatorial sentiments. The demands put forward demonstrate that Iranians have a clear vision for their future. And it shows that it is time for the reactionary forces outside Iran to accept that Iranian people can indeed alter their society from within.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/201422/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simin Fadaee does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Increasing numbers of Iranians want a government of the people, not a monarchy or an Islamic theocracy.Simin Fadaee, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of ManchesterLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1935072022-12-21T13:40:26Z2022-12-21T13:40:26ZHow female Iranian activists use powerful images to protest oppressive policies<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/502184/original/file-20221220-13-loap2p.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=17%2C17%2C3817%2C2535&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Women have been at the forefront of protests in Iran.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SyriaIran/3b79af71c23442d1bcae8e54248258b7/photo?Query=Iranians%20protests%20the%20death%20of%2022-year-old%20Mahsa%20Amini&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=323&currentItemNo=89">Hawar News Agency via AP via AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Images of unveiled Iranian women and adolescent girls <a href="https://twitter.com/GEsfandiari/status/1585346972655190016">standing atop police cars</a> or <a href="https://twitter.com/ksadjadpour/status/1593673422290157569">flipping off the ayatollah’s picture</a> have become signature demonstrations of dissent in the past few months of protest in Iran.</p>
<p>In fact, among the Iranian protest photos selected for inclusion in Time magazine’s list of the “<a href="https://time.com/6234958/top-100-photos-2022/">Top 100 Photos of 2022</a>” are one of women running from military police brigades and another of an unveiled woman standing on a car with hands raised.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://cas.uoregon.edu/directory/political-science/all/pkazemi">a scholar studying the use of images in political movements</a>, I find Iranian protest photos powerful and engaging because they play on several elements of defiance. They draw on a longer history of Iranian women taking and sharing photos and videos of actions considered illegal, such as singing and dancing to protest gender oppression.</p>
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<h2>Pictures in past Iranian movements</h2>
<p>Iranian women did not stage mass public demonstrations against restrictions on their freedoms for nearly three decades <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/052159572X">following the 1979 Islamic Revolution</a>, when protests against compulsory hijab laws were brutally crushed by the Islamic regime.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white picture showing hundreds of young girls marching in a procession and holding up banners." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=76%2C4%2C2919%2C1625&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=327&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/501998/original/file-20221219-16-1hbucl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=411&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Thousands of Iranian women march in Tehran on March 12, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IranRevolutionWomen/0e669bf5cd5a42fc8e30a9398d680847/photo?Query=iran%20women%20protests%20&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=318&currentItemNo=198">AP Photo/Richard Tomkins</a></span>
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<p>In the 2009 Iranian Green Movement against election fraud, however, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8675.2009.00576.x">women played a major role</a>. Images of one young female protester, Neda Agha-Soltan, who was fatally shot by security forces during the protest, went viral, <a href="https://pure.au.dk/portal/en/publications/dramatic-diffusion-and-meaning-adaptation-the-case-of-neda(10d410cc-8e43-41f8-8d28-48694541e00b).html">catalyzing millions of Iranians to join the protests</a>.</p>
<p>In subsequent protests, visuals have been at the heart of women’s efforts to mobilize against the Islamic Republic. In 2014, women <a href="https://revistas.uam.es/reim/article/view/6936">began recording themselves</a> walking, cycling, dancing and singing in public unveiled, under the banner of the “My Stealthy Freedom” movement. Started by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-born journalist based in New York, the movement protested the <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781315716299-18/importance-social-social-media-gholam-khiabany">forced wearing of the hijab</a> and other restrictive laws by showing women breaking them.</p>
<p>Walking in busy city streets unveiled, riding a bike in parks where such activities are banned for women and joining dance circles in town squares were among the ways in which Iranian women protested oppressive laws and practices.</p>
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<p>Four years later, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-middle-east-42954970">what came to be known as the “Girls of Revolution Street,” protests</a> started with one woman, Vida Movahed, standing atop a utility box on Tehran’s Revolution Street to wave her headscarf on a stick like a flag. Soon, others joined Movahed by repeating her action in other public spaces in Iran.</p>
<p>Images showing dozens of people protesting mandatory veiling in this way were widely shared on social media and later picked up by global news networks, bringing international attention to women’s resistance efforts in Iran.</p>
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<p>The use of images by protesters has been a central practice of resistance in other protests around the world as well. During the Arab Spring, a series of protests against the ruling regimes that spread across the Middle East and North Africa in the early 2010s, <a href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/S0163-786X(2013)0000035005/full/html">images</a> played an important role <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444813489863">in mobilizing people</a> into joining the movement.</p>
<p>A photo of a woman dragged by government forces in the streets of Egypt with her body exposed persuaded many to protest against what was a clear <a href="https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/676977?casa_token=vd5wbfWy-OAAAAAA%3AgghjRf9NxTbRrCUmdCAriIv4iH70podl1ZPJ_LvB3KjX7GQbf8HR3Qnew3g7i4p2U49r1kgh3fuCXw">example of state violence</a> in the Egyptian uprising. These images challenged the regime interpretations of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1425.2011.01343.x">protesters as “troublemakers</a>” and helped <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2012.01629.x">bypass the state-controlled news networks</a> to show the world what was happening on the ground.</p>
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<h2>What such a resistance means</h2>
<p>Iranian women have been protesting the Islamic Republic’s sexist policies and showing the world what <a href="https://acme-journal.org/index.php/acme/article/view/1903">freedom</a> and <a href="https://www.macrothink.org/journal/index.php/jsss/article/view/6284">gender identity</a> mean to them through their bodily expressions.</p>
<p>Images of women freely riding a bike or sitting with a member of the opposite sex while unveiled are ways of protesting through the everyday acts that women are barred from under the Islamic Republic. Through their widespread participation in these actions, women have shown a <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471772717302750">solidarity</a>.</p>
<p>As it is difficult for the Islamic Republic to suppress this kind of protest, it often responds by arresting key activists who can be identified and imprisoning them for several years. In 2019, one activist associated with this form of protest, Yasaman Aryani, <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.au/shortened-sentence-for-yasaman/">was sentenced to a 16-year jail term</a> after a video surfaced of her handing out flowers in the Tehran metro unveiled.</p>
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<p>Images of Iranian women engaged in defiant acts make their daily oppression visible. Scholar <a href="https://www.gu.se/en/about/find-staff/monalilja">Mona Lilja</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2017.1382176">describes these protests in terms of</a> “resisting bodies” that speak in ways that are not always apparent at the outset of a demonstration or public act of defiance. Emotions, symbolic actions and women’s engagements with the spaces in which they protest combine to form the meaning of resistance we associate with these pictures. </p>
<p>Today’s protest pictures build on past resistance efforts and build on a tradition of resisting the Iranian government.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193507/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Parichehr Kazemi's research is supported by the University of Oregon's Center for the Study of Women in Society (CSWS) and the Ryoichi Sasakawa Young Leaders Fellowship Fund (SYLFF). </span></em></p>Iranian women have often used images of actions such as singing and dancing unveiled to show what freedom means to them and to protest the Islamic Republic’s gender oppression.Parichehr Kazemi, PhD Candidate, University of OregonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1960232022-12-08T13:31:52Z2022-12-08T13:31:52ZWho are Iran’s morality police? A scholar of the Middle East explains their history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/499666/original/file-20221207-25-m2zdo5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=89%2C0%2C4861%2C3315&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protestors are pressing the Iranian regime for changes since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TurkeyIranProtest/d9ae2b7e51934fa2adc8d553e095e291/photo?Query=mahsa%20amini%20iran&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=554&currentItemNo=157">AP Photo/Emrah Gurel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Until recently, most people outside of Iran had never heard of the country’s morality police, let alone followed their wider role in the region. But on Sept. 16, 2022, the death of Jina Mahsa Amini <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/16/iranian-woman-dies-after-moral-polices-detention-reports">sparked widespread protests</a> in the streets of Iran and elsewhere that have shown no signs of abating. Amini had been in the custody of Gasht-e-Ershad, the Persian name of this notorious police force, for “improper wearing of hijab.”</p>
<p>On Dec. 4, reports citing <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/05/middleeast/iran-morality-police-mime-intl/index.html">Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri</a> suggested that the morality police had been abolished. Montazeri said that the morality police lacked judiciary power and that hijab <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/04/middleeast/iran-hijab-law-under-review-intl/index.html">laws were under review</a>, which led to widespread speculation about whether the regime was trying to find a way forward. </p>
<p>Yet, there were those who doubted the comments and called it a “false flag” on the part of those in power. A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/06/iran-morality-police-abolished-hijab/">few noted that even if the morality police</a> were abolished and the mandatory wearing of the hijab repealed, the regime would still need to be held accountable for all of its human rights violations. </p>
<p>These sentiments have formed the basis of <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202212052265">a three-day nationwide strike</a> that began on Dec. 5 and has shuttered thousands of shops, including those in the historic Grand Bazaar in the heart of Tehran, bringing the economy of the country to a grinding halt. </p>
<p>But who are the morality police? Where did they come from? And what is their history during and before the Islamic Republic of Iran? </p>
<h2>A vice squad in context</h2>
<p>The mandate and power of morality police date back to before the Islamic Revolution that shook Iran in 1979, and their reach has extended throughout the Middle East. </p>
<p>The Quran says that it is imperative that religious leaders “<a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2022/09/26/who-are-irans-hated-morality-police?utm_medium=cpc.adword.pd&utm_source=google&ppccampaignID=17210591673&ppcadID=&utm_campaign=a.22brand_pmax&utm_content=conversion.direct-response.anonymous&gclid=Cj0KCQiA7bucBhCeARIsAIOwr-9ss672dmAmOubJUK8cfBd-COZDQcHn2oAQSSxpeCm_HDaJkuoiq8caAoDdEALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds">ensure right and forbid wrong</a>.” To carry this out, beginning at the time of the Prophet Mohammad, public morals were overseen by market inspectors referred <a href="https://islamicmarkets.com/dictionary/a/al-muhtasib">to as muhtasib</a>.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.pardismahdavi.com/">a scholar of gender and feminism</a> in the Middle East, I’ve studied the long history of debates about the role of Islam in regulating morality. The earliest evidence of a muhtasib, interestingly, was a woman selected in Medina by the prophet himself. </p>
<p>Over the centuries, the mandate of the muhtasib became focused on regulating dress, particularly for women. While these market inspectors were recorded as issuing fines and occasional lashings, they did not have the same <a href="https://newlinesmag.com/argument/the-dubious-roots-of-religious-police-in-islam/">level of authority as the judiciary</a>. </p>
<p>By the early 20th century, however, the muhtasibs had transitioned into the vice squads, patrolling the streets to make sure people were complying with Islamic values. It was mostly in Saudi Arabia under the influence of Wahhabism that morality police forces first gained prominence and momentum. <a href="https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/AD1053195.pdf">The first modern morality police force</a>, an official committee charged with “commanding right and forbidding wrong,” was formed in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1926. Comprised mostly of men, the force was charged with enforcing modest dress, regulating heterosocializing – engagement with members of the opposite sex if unmarried or unrelated – and ensuring citizens attended prayer.</p>
<p>By 2012, more than one-third of the 56 countries making up The Organization for Islamic Cooperation <a href="https://themedialine.org/news/iran-is-not-the-only-country-with-morality-police/">had some form of religiously informed </a> squadrons seeking to uphold right and forbid wrong as interpreted by Islamists in power. </p>
<h2>A committee to enact revolution</h2>
<p>In Iran, the morality police first appeared in the form of what was called the “<a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100041983">Islamic Revolution Committee</a>” following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the Shiite cleric who led the revolution, wanted to control the behavior of Iranian citizens after too many years of what he and his fellow Islamists called a period of “<a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/162924">secular Westoxication</a>.” </p>
<p>The Islamic Revolution Committee, called “Komiteh” by many Iranians, was merged in the 1980s with the <a href="https://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/gendarmerie">Gendarmerie</a>, the first rural police force overseeing modern highways, to form the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In 1983, when mandatory veiling laws were passed, the Komiteh was tasked with ensuring these laws were upheld in addition to their other duties of ensuring right and forbidding wrong. </p>
<h2>A changing time</h2>
<p>The current morality police – the Guidance Patrol or Gasht-e-Ershad – were given formal standing as an arm of the police force by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. </p>
<p>The group had been steadily growing in size since the 1980s, and by 2005 consisted of <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-36101150">more than 7,000 officers</a>. Women make up less than a quarter of the squadron but frequently accompany their male counterparts, who often arrive in unmarked vans and pour out into the streets in green uniforms. The women, meanwhile, wear black cloaks that cover them from head to toe. </p>
<p>For most of the 1980s and 1990s, the Komiteh was comprised of religiously devout followers of the regime who joined the force at the encouragement of <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-irans-morality-police/a-63200711#:%7E:text=%22Gasht%2De%2DErshad%2C,mandatory%20in%20Iran%20in%201983">clerics</a>. However, by the early 2000s, Iran’s population was comprised mostly of young people. When Ahmadinejad made the Komiteh an official police force, a number of young men joined to fulfill their <a href="https://www.thenationalnews.com/mena/iran/2022/12/05/who-are-irans-morality-police-and-what-do-they-enforce/">mandatory military conscription</a>. This younger generation was more lax than their older counterparts, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=15943">leading to inconsistent patrolling</a>. </p>
<p>When President Ebrahim Raisi came to power in 2021, he emboldened the morality police to engage in <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/10/10/iran-protests-hijab-mahsa-amini-morality-police-ebrahim-raisi/">harsh crackdowns on the Iranian populace</a>, particularly in the cities. Raisi, like Khomeini and other clerics, used this vice squad to send a message to Iranian citizens that the regime is watching. </p>
<p>This clampdown, particularly when it led to the death of Amini, has been met with outrage by a large number of Iranians. While it is not yet confirmed whether or not the morality police have been disbanded, protesters are continuing to press the regime for change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196023/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pardis Mahdavi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Morality police first appeared in Iran soon after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. But similar forces were present in parts of the Middle East even prior to the date.Pardis Mahdavi, Provost and Executive Vice President, University of MontanaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1955432022-11-29T23:30:54Z2022-11-29T23:30:54ZHeadwear and hegemony: how ‘turban tossing’ protests are threatening Iran’s ruling clergy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/497804/original/file-20221129-25-bis436.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C9%2C6252%2C4468&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest image of Mahsa Amani, whose death ignited anti-regime demonstrations across Iran and the world.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://time.com/6221004/iran-protests-mahsa-amini-change/">ongoing protests</a> in Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s “Guidance Patrol” (or morality police) have made world headlines. But there is another form of protest that has received less mainstream attention in Western media.</p>
<p>Whereas Amini was arrested for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”, thereby violating Iran’s mandatory hijab law, this new protest campaign involves another form of headwear – the amameh, or turban, worn by Shi’a clergy. Protesters have been deliberately knocking amameh off the heads of passing clerics.</p>
<p>The movement, known as “amameh parani”, has spread across Iran since early November. It has become particularly popular with young Iranians. Videos posted on twitter under #TurbanTossing and عمامه_پرانی# show amameh being knocked off in streets, cars, buses, metro stations and almost everywhere clergy appear in public. </p>
<p>In less than a month, amameh parani has become the symbol of a national satirical mockery of Shi’a clergy and their legitimacy in Iran, and another face of the global protests against the death of Mahsa Amini. </p>
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<h2>Clerical rule</h2>
<p>By focusing on the significance, symbolism and function of the amameh, the campaign explicitly targets the hegemony of Shi’a clergy over Iranian politics and society. </p>
<p>Clerical attire is composed of three pieces: the amameh, a turban made of 11 metres of thin white or black cotton material; a long cotton garment called a qabā; and the abā, the long open robe worn over it.</p>
<p>Students at Shi’a seminaries are ceremonially crowned with an amameh upon completing the first stage of their theological studies, which typically take three to five years.</p>
<p>Iranian clergy and their institutions view the amameh as sacred. They even use its colours to signify the lineage of a cleric, creating a class-based system both within and outside the clerical institutions. In its contemporary usage, for instance, a black amameh signifies a cleric’s claim of direct lineage to the prophet.</p>
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<p>Because of this, the amameh is the source of religious legitimacy and implies a sense of infallibility inherent in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_Islam">Shi’a theology</a>. The Islamic Republic has translated this theological model systematically into politics. </p>
<p>The amameh is the only source of political authority in the Islamic Republic. The clergy occupy all positions of power and authority. They have established and protected an exclusive political and economic system. </p>
<p>Iran’s parliament, government, judiciary, military, economy and education system are either directly ruled by a cleric or by a clerical assembly. Candidates in Iran’s elections must be approved by the Guardian Council. The council also warrants all laws passed by the parliament in accordance with Shi’a Shari’a law.</p>
<p>The amameh is no longer a mere sign of religious learning or social status. Rather, it is the symbol of a hegemonic political power. Like defrocking in Christian churches, removing an amameh is synonymous with the removal of its associated rights, authority and prestige. </p>
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<h2>Crisis of legitimacy</h2>
<p>Prior to the Mahsa Amini protests, amameh parani was typically a deliberate cross-party attack at a perceived political opponent. It was typically performed by zealous followers of the conservatives, based on an edict from one of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruhollah_Khomeini">Ruhollah Khomeini</a>’s revolutionary sermons in 1969 to toss the turbans of clergy deemed corrupt. </p>
<p>The current amameh parani campaign employs the same tactic for a different end. Dislodging an amameh in public is a sign of great irreverence and ridicule. It attacks what the attire represents: the Islamic Republic regime.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-is-using-every-effort-to-crush-protesters-intent-on-a-revolution-except-hearing-them-out-193684">Iran is using every effort to crush protesters intent on a revolution — except hearing them out</a>
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<p>Hand in hand with slogans such as “Clerics get lost!”, it’s a form of resistance against discrimination and exclusion, and represents the rejection of clericalism. It is a symbolic act against the entanglement of religion and politics in Iran.</p>
<p>The campaign is also about gender politics and the violent and discriminatory way clothing is used against women. It is common for clergy to verbally abuse women and girls in public for their “inappropriate” hijab . The death of Mahsa Amini highlighted the kind of gender-based abuse Iranian women have been subject to for more than four decades.</p>
<p>From Iranian clergy in parliament saying that tossing the amameh is “playing with the lion’s tail”, to Iraqi Shi'a Sadrist leader <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muqtada_al-Sadr">Muqtada al-Sadr</a> warning against the spread of amameh parani across the border, it’s clear the symbolic meaning of the act is being felt.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-reflect-society-wide-anger-at-regime-which-trashes-rule-of-law-and-human-rights-193773">Iran: hijab protests reflect society-wide anger at regime which trashes rule of law and human rights</a>
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<p>The reaction to protest in general has been typically <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/iran-world-must-take-meaningful-action-against-bloody-crackdown-as-death-toll-rises/">harsh and violent</a>, including calls for the execution of protesters. Courts have already <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2022/11/17/more-protesters-in-iran-sentenced-to-death-as-political-unrest-persists.html">imposed the death sentence</a> on some. These threats can extend to those who live outside Iran, including the co-author of this article, who has decided to remain anonymous. </p>
<p>Had any influential cleric opposed the killing of Mahsa Amini or other peaceful protesters, campaigns like amameh parani might not have taken off. But the regime’s demand for more brutality and violence has only further angered the public. </p>
<p>The Iranian clergy face a crisis of legitimacy beyond politics. Their challenge is no longer about maintaining hegemony over the country, but whether they will retain the legitimacy to perform their traditional religious roles.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195543/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Negar Partow is affiliated with United Nations Association of New Zealand (volunteer). </span></em></p>Protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini have gone global. But in Iran there is a unique version, known as ‘amameh parani’, targeting a garment sacred to Shi’a clerics.Negar Partow, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies, Massey UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1936892022-11-14T13:26:34Z2022-11-14T13:26:34ZThe veil in Iran has been an enduring symbol of patriarchal norms – but its use has changed depending on who is in power<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/494691/original/file-20221110-25-c211vj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=59%2C0%2C3934%2C2658&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In much of the media outside Iran, female protesters not wearing the headscarf have been highlighted as symbols of defiance.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/IranProtests/61ea947c119b40ab8d64c0b1f701fe35/photo?Query=iran%20protest%20woman&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=624&currentItemNo=294">AP Photo/Middle East Images, File</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In images of the uprising that followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16, 2022, perhaps the most iconic ones, aside from that of Amini herself, are those of unveiled Iranian women photographed from behind, facing police barricades or raising a fist at the scene of mass protests.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63097629">wide use of images of Iranian female protesters</a>, without the headscarf, in the Western media highlights how the veil can often be seen as the single most important measure of women’s rights and well-being. </p>
<p>Indeed, oftentimes outside of Iran, wearing a veil is seen as oppression – and its removal as emancipation and freedom. This understanding, however, fails to take into account the veil’s broader symbolism and ignores the complex history of mandatory veiling and unveiling in Iran in the 20th and 21st centuries. </p>
<h2>Islamic Republic and the veil</h2>
<p>During the 1979 revolution, veiling became a symbol of resistance to the Pahlavi monarchy that ruled from 1925 to 1979. For many during the revolution, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511815249">veil was a symbol of authentic national identity</a>. It was used to push back against the Westernization and erosion of Iranian values that ignited the revolution.</p>
<p>After the Islamic Republic, led by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, came to power, the veil became compulsory. Since then, certain forms of veiling – such as donning the chador, a cloaklike garment that covers the entire body and is required of women visiting a mosque in Iran – have come to be seen as <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/women-and-politics-iran-veiling-unveiling-and-reveiling?format">signaling affiliation with</a> or support for the Islamic Republic. </p>
<p>Less comprehensive forms of veiling, such as a rusari, or head scarf, and the knee-length tunic or coat known as a rupush, are understood as signs of minimum cooperation and potentially a rejection of the norms of the Islamic Republic. These types of veiling allow the wearer to adjust the amount of hair shown and the fit and the length of the tunic. Women accused of “bad hijab,” as Amini was, are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/iran-blog/2014/jun/19/iran-morality-police-patrol">typically those adopting this form of veiling</a>. </p>
<p>However, in pre-1979 Iran, wearing the veil did not necessarily mean that a woman was straightforwardly “religious.” Instead, it could <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Anti-Veiling-Campaigns-in-the-Muslim-World-Gender-Modernism-and-the-Politics/Cronin/p/book/9781138687202">signal a variety of other social meanings</a>, such as being conservative, upholding traditional values or an indication of personal modesty, among others. </p>
<h2>Pahlavis and the era of modernization</h2>
<p>Indeed, four decades before the Islamic Republic was established, the Shah of Iran, Reza Pahlavi, had forced women to remove their veils through the Mandatory Unveiling Act of 1936. </p>
<p>Pahlavi, who installed himself as king in 1925 after overthrowing the Qajar monarchy, viewed the entry of unveiled women into public spaces as an essential component of modernity, modeled on Western norms. </p>
<p>As a consequence of the 1936 act, women were prohibited from veiling in public. Refusal to comply was met with <a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Making-of-Modern-Iran-State-and-Society-under-Riza-Shah-1921-1941/Cronin/p/book/9780415450959">sometimes violent enforcement</a> and removal of the offending garment. While men too were instructed to wear European-style trousers, suits and hats, it was women’s bodies that were at the nexus of these reforms. </p>
<p>Pahlavi’s complex project of modernization included reforms to law and education, and the end of gender segregation of many public spaces. The reforms offered women greater rights and protections should their husbands choose to divorce them, and opened up new educational opportunities. But Pahlavi viewed the presence of unveiled women in public space as essential to signaling these changes. </p>
<p>My book “<a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=20296">Burying the Beloved</a>” examines how ideas about women’s personhood and rights were explored during this period by novelists in Iran, particularly through stories about marriage. This era saw the publication both of the first novel by a woman and the first female protagonist in Persian fiction. Novels of this period <a href="https://www.halbanpublishers.com/a-persian-requiem">revealed social anxieties around the legal reforms</a> that gave women larger roles in society and more rights in marriage. </p>
<p>Pahlavi abdicated in 1941, during World War II, and his son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who ascended the throne, adopted a more lenient attitude toward this law. He did not rescind it, but neither did he violently enforce it. At the same time, the modernity his regime promoted was signaled by a cosmopolitan secularism – <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/politics-international-relations/comparative-politics/women-and-politics-iran-veiling-unveiling-and-reveiling?format=HB">no veiled woman</a> could hope to advance in the diverse areas of society, politics and economy patronized and controlled by the monarchy during his rule, which lasted until 1979. </p>
<p>Social and familial pressures <a href="https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813024714">reigned over women’s veiling</a>, accompanied by changing cultural mores facilitated by virtually wholesale adoption of Western sartorial styles, cinema and other media. </p>
<h2>Dying to show their hair?</h2>
<p>Over the past few weeks, I have repeatedly seen comments on news articles that insist, “Women in Iran are literally dying to show their hair!” But a rejection of the head scarf in the context of these protests is not a simple demand for one personal freedom.</p>
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<p>Instead, it should be understood as a rejection of many things. Protesters in Iran are pushing back against an oppressive regime that has refused to brook any dissent and has destroyed voices for reform through imprisonment, exile or death. They are also pushing back against a long history of laws, beginning before the 1979 Revolution, that have used women’s bodies as symbols of political ideology. </p>
<p>The veil that is being removed is therefore not an insistence only on the right to personal freedom and expression – though it may be that for some who are removing it – but also a rejection of patriarchal norms that have animated both the pre-revolutionary regime and the Islamic Republic.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193689/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amy Motlagh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The veil as a symbol of oppression has once again moved to center stage in Iran, but it’s important to know about the history of veiling – and mandatory unveiling.Amy Motlagh, Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Middle Eastern/South Asian Studies, University of California, DavisLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1937732022-11-04T16:51:24Z2022-11-04T16:51:24ZIran: hijab protests reflect society-wide anger at regime which trashes rule of law and human rights<p>The death of <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-challenge-legitimacy-of-islamic-republic-191958">Mahsa Amini</a> at the hands of Iran’s morality police in September for not wearing the hijab properly was a fracturing point, prompting Iranian women to come on to the streets <em>en masse</em> to protest the regime’s violence and injustice. </p>
<p>But our understanding of these protests should not be narrowly restricted to the rights of women. More broadly, they are a reaction to the absence of democracy and the rule of law in Iran on one hand, and the abuse of power and frequent human rights violations on the other.</p>
<p>One of the biggest problems for Iranian people is built in to the way the Islamic Republic operates, with the lack of a clear separation of powers, democracy and accountability. Iran’s judiciary is not independent of the regime, where power is constitutionally concentrated in one person: the supreme leader, <a href="https://iranprimer.usip.org/resource/supreme-leader">Ayatollah Ali Khamenei</a>. He is not answerable to any higher authority or legal or political mechanism. He doesn’t face a public vote.</p>
<p>The preamble to <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iran_1989.pdf">Iran’s constitution</a> provides that “the constitution strives to hand over the destiny of people to themselves”. From this notion of democracy should flow respect for human rights, freedom of expression, access to power, the rule of law, separation of powers, independence of the judiciary, and transparency and accountability of the government. But in practice things are very different: non-accountability and abuse of power have <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/">become normalised</a> during the Islamic Republic’s 43 years in power.</p>
<h2>Frequent violations of human rights</h2>
<p>Iran is a signatory to various international treaties, including the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR)</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-economic-social-and-cultural-rights">International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR)</a>. Yet it has frequently restricted the right to peaceful protest, using sometimes <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2021/08/iran-security-forces-use-ruthless-force-mass-arrests-and-torture-to-crush-peaceful-protests/">lethal force against and torturing</a> peaceful protesters. And, in violation of its free speech obligations under Article 19(2) of the ICCPR, it frequently violates the right to freedom of expression by restricting access to information, including banning <a href="https://www.wired.co.uk/article/iran-protests-2022-internet-shutdown-whatsapp">social media platforms</a> such as YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp and Telegram, and shutting down the internet in times of peaceful protests. </p>
<p>The list of violations of fundamental rights is long. It includes denying freedom of religion to Iran’s minority religious groups, who suffer regular discrimination and persecution. The Baha’i community is the <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-bahai-faith-persecution-un-rights-religious-minorities/31999696.html#:%7E:text=Baha'is%20face%20systematic%20persecution,of%20many%20others%20across%20Iran.">most severely persecuted</a> religious group in Iran – and there has been a marked increase in arrests and targeting of this community in 2022. By April, UN experts had received <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/08/iran-un-experts-alarmed-escalating-religious-persecution#:%7E:text=The%20Baha'i%20community%20is,their%20initial%20arrests%20and%20hearings.">reports</a> that more than 1,000 Baha’i people were awaiting imprisonment following their initial arrests and hearings. </p>
<p>Minority languages are <a href="https://iranhumanrights.org/2021/02/non-persian-mother-languages-treated-as-national-security-threat-in-iran/">routinely suppressed</a>, including <a href="https://iran-hrm.com/2021/02/20/mother-language-in-iran-another-excuse-for-injustice-against-minorities/">in schools</a>, despite an article in the constitution declaring that “use of regional and ethnic languages in the press, the mass media, and the teaching of their literature at schools, alongside the Persian language, is freely permitted”. </p>
<p>Amnesty International’s <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/middle-east-and-north-africa/iran/report-iran/">2021 report</a> highlighted widespread human rights abuses in Iran, including the regular use of the death penalty as a “weapon of repression”. It stated:</p>
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<p>Thousands of people were interrogated, unfairly prosecuted and/or arbitrarily detained solely for peacefully exercising their human rights, and hundreds remained unjustly imprisoned.</p>
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<p>According to the UN’s special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders in Iran, Javaid Rehman, more than 14,000 men, women and children <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/03/middleeast/iran-protests-arrests-united-nations-intl/index.html">have been arrested</a> in Iran during the current protests. He added that the “unabated violent response of security forces” in the country has led to the reported deaths of at least 277 people. </p>
<p>It has been reported that more than <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/11/01/middleeast/iran-public-trials-mahsa-amini-protests-intl/index.html">1,000 people</a> have been charged with a variety of offences in the Tehran province for involvement in the protests. Mohammad Ghobadlou, 22, has reportedly been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/iran-indicts-some-1000-people-tehran-over-unrest-tasnim-reports-2022-10-31/">sentenced to death</a> for hitting and killing a police officer with his car during the protests, but this has not been confirmed. </p>
<h2>Abuse of power</h2>
<p>The Islamic Republic often justifies its brutality and human rights violations by referring to the constitutional exceptions for behaviour detrimental to the fundamental principles of Islam or for actions likely to undermine national security. Yet Article 176, which concerns national security, refers to a violent threat to the nation rather than peaceful protest.</p>
<p>The Islamic Republic has been relying on national security in a broad sense to suppress peaceful dissent, unlawfully using violence – including against women and children – for the sake of its own survival, rather than the safety of the country. Crucial to the regime’s survival has been the support of the security forces, who take their orders from the Supreme Council for National Security (SCNS) – chaired by the president and including representatives who take their orders from the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.</p>
<p>The situation is much worse when it comes to the rights of women in Iran, which are supposedly protected under Article 20 of the constitution, which states: “All citizens of the country, both men and women, equally enjoy the protection of the law and enjoy all human, political, economic, social and cultural rights <em>in conformity with Islamic criteria</em>.”</p>
<p>The italicised words are key here. The constitution also emphasises the need to protect and promote women’s “momentous and precious function of motherhood” – the family is a “fundamental unit of society and the main centre for the growth and edification of human beings”.</p>
<p>This goal was achieved in part by restricting women’s role in social, cultural and political life. So it’s no coincidence that the Iranian government has never ratified the 1979 Convention on the <a href="https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/en/our-human-rights-work/monitoring-and-promoting-un-treaties/convention-elimination-discrimination#:%7E:text=CEDAW%20is%20an%20international%20human,roles%20for%20women%20and%20men">Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)</a>, which ensures full equality for women in all areas of their lives.</p>
<p>Iranian women have been at the forefront of the current protests, and the cry “women, life, freedom” expresses the deep yearning that women across the country share in the face of the regime’s oppression. But they are joined in their anger by many thousands of men, who want to force change to ensure the rights of all Iranians are respected – regardless of gender, religion or ethnicity.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193773/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Saeed Bagheri does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Iran’s constitution guarantees human rights but its government doesn’t.Saeed Bagheri, Lecturer in International Law, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1931982022-10-28T11:48:34Z2022-10-28T11:48:34ZIran: protesters call for move to a non-religious state. What changes would that bring?<p>My friend was in Tehran during protests after <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/events-iran-since-mahsa-aminis-arrest-death-custody-2022-10-05/">the death</a> of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police (<em>Gasht-e Ershad</em>). My friend went into a grocery shop intending to buy milk. The seller refused to sell anything to her. “Why are you refusing?” she asked. “I can see that you have milk.” “Because you are wearing a hijab,” the seller responded.</p>
<p>This is part of a backlash by those who see themselves as oppressed by the Islamic Republic’s discriminatory hijab law, which prosecutes women for not “covering up”. The term <em>hijab</em> is an Arabic word meaning cover. It’s used to refer to different types of covering, from a long-sleeved coat, pants and scarf to the Islamic government’s preferred form of dress, <em>chador</em>, which is a loose-fitting black cloth worn over the entire body. After Mahsa Amini’s killing in September, mass protests broke out over this law and its enforcement. </p>
<p>Wearing hijab became obligatory for all Iranian women from April 1983, after the 1979 revolution. Since then, all women have been forced by law to wear hijab (a covering of hair and or body) in public, even non-Muslims and foreigners visiting Iran. If they don’t they face prosecution.</p>
<p>The government of Iran, the Islamic Republic, argues that God commands women to wear hijab. This is a government which has leaders who are members of the clergy and merged religious beliefs into state law. But even some Islamic scholars argue that the Qur'an does not suggest that hijab should be <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300257311/women-and-gender-in-islam/">compulsory</a>.</p>
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<p>Mahsa Amini’s case is polarising Iran: those who rigorously advocate the hijab and religious law are set against those who prefer a <a href="https://time.com/6216024/iran-protests-islamic-republic-response/">secular state</a>, not run by religious values. </p>
<p>This has led the nation to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/26/iran-at-least-15-killed-after-gunmen-attack-shrine-in-shiraz">the current upheaval</a>, with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/08/are-hijab-protests-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-irans-regime">vast</a> protests across the country, and <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-63410577">people being killed</a>. </p>
<p>At many protests the Iranian resistance chant is <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/iran-protests-women-life-freedom-mahsa-amini-killing/"><em>Zan</em>, <em>Zendegi</em>, <em>Azadi</em></a> (#WomenLifeFreedom) is heard. The protesters call for life and liberty to be applicable to everyone (religious and non-religious). A big part of <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448">the motivation</a> behind these protests is to challenge how the current religious law takes away the right of women to choose what to wear. </p>
<h2>What is secularism?</h2>
<p>Secularism is the idea that states should be <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/1881/chapter-abstract/141631825?redirectedFrom=fulltext">neutral about religion</a>. The state should not <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/16/what-mean-secular-state-neutral">back</a> a specific religion over others. A secular state <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2011.01117.x">provides</a> equal opportunity for religious and non-religious citizens to pursue their lives. The state must respect everyone’s values (including minorities), not just some people’s values.</p>
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<p>Secularism seems reasonable <a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/28394">to many</a> because it is unusual for an entire nation to believe in a religion as one source of law. Some <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/00263206.2019.1643330">scholars of Islam</a> disagree with the established interpretation of the Islamic Republic about whether God has commanded a mandatory hijab. As a result, they claim that hijab is not about covering hair but about “modesty”. Some others challenge <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/12/iran-hijab-law-protest-ali-larijani">the way</a> the morality police treat women in the street.</p>
<p>While some people might be railing against women being forced to wear the hijab, others continue to feel strongly about its continued use. <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-qom-women-hijab/31929986.html">Reports</a> say that Iranian authorities have closed some coffee shops because of the “improper” hijab of some female customers. And more <a href="https://english.alaraby.co.uk/news/iran-detains-woman-eating-breakfast-without-hijab">recently</a>, a woman was arrested for eating breakfast in a café with no hijab. </p>
<h2>Iranian history of secularism</h2>
<p>Modern debates about secularism in Iran can be traced back to the <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/irans-constitutional-revolution-9780755649235/">Constitutional Revolution</a> in 1906. It advocated <a href="https://iranicaonline.org/articles/constitutional-revolution-i">liberalism and secularism</a> and began conversations about a society without religious rules for all. </p>
<p>Iranians experienced enforced secularisation shortly after Reza Shah Pahlavi was <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Reza-Shah-Pahlavi">crowned</a> in 1925. In 1936 he issued a decree <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/iran-and-the-headscarf-protests/"><em>Kashf-e hijab</em></a> that any public expression of religious faith, including wearing hijab, was illegal. Again, this was a leader was telling women what to wear. However, his attempt to militantly secularise and westernise Iran faced <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203060636-22/banning-veil-consequences-dr-stephanie-cronin">resistance</a> from society.</p>
<p>The overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in 1979 led to the establishment of a militant Islamic government based on <a href="https://www.icit-digital.org/books/islam-and-revolution-writings-and-declarations-of-imam-khomeini-1941-1980">Shia Muslim teachings</a>. After the hijab became <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/irans-headscarf-politics">mandatory</a>, it became a symbol of compulsory faith. It has also played a significant role in pushing some parts of the Iranian population towards a more secular state.</p>
<p>In 2022 Iran is experiencing some dramatic shifts, including what appears to be a shift towards secularism. Some argue that secularism is an <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/25/archives/khomeini-terms-secular-critics-enemies-of-islam-dictatorship-of-the.html">enemy</a> of religion or a product of <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814795644/democracy-in-modern-iran/">western colonisation</a>. Despite the majority of Iranians considering themselves <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GAMAAN-Iran-Religion-Survey-2020-English.pdf">religious</a>, some evidence shows that Iranians are <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448">less religious</a> than before. </p>
<p>Since the Islamic revolution there’s been a lot of research about how Iran could work as a <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Secularization-of-Islam-in-Post-Revolutionary-Iran/Pargoo/p/book/9780367654672">secular</a> society and about religious <a href="https://brill.com/view/book/9789047400714/B9789047400714_s006.xml">tolerance</a>.</p>
<p>The current protest movement, led mainly by <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/irans-rising-generation-z-forefront-protests">Gen Z in Iran</a>, is growing partly because of its use of the internet and social media to communicate and share information. People can also learn from other nations’ experiences of secularism through social media. This is why the regime is <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/audio/2022/oct/06/why-is-the-government-in-iran-shutting-down-the-internet-podcast">shutting down</a> the internet and censoring YouTube, Instagram and Twitter.</p>
<p><a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/GAMAAN-Political-Systems-Survey-2022-English-Final.pdf">One poll</a> suggests that more than 60% of Iranians now want a non-religious state, the question is whether those in power are willing to give it to them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/193198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hossein Dabbagh does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As calls for greater freedom grow, the author examines how secularism might work in Iran.Hossein Dabbagh, Philosophy Tutor, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1915512022-10-23T12:30:28Z2022-10-23T12:30:28ZThe protests in Iran are part of a long history of women’s resistance<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490472/original/file-20221018-26-we86qn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C77%2C8601%2C5665&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A placard with a picture of Mahsa Amini, whose death while being detained by Iran’s morality police has ignited a wave of protests across the country.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/the-protests-in-iran-are-part-of-a-long-history-of-women-s-resistance" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>On Sept. 16, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63200649">Mahsa (Zhina) Amini</a>, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63240911">died in Tehran while in the custody of Iran’s morality police</a>. Her death set off a massive wave of demonstrations that have spread across the country.</p>
<p>While the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/23/how-iran-erupted-after-mahsa-amini-death-protests">protests started with anger over the enforcement of the hijab</a>, they represent a much wider movement that now poses the greatest threat the theocratic regime has faced since the 1979 revolution. </p>
<h2>Controlling women’s bodies</h2>
<p>As initial news of Amini’s hospitalization spread, angry citizens began demonstrating against the morality police. This coercive force has <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/irans-morality-police-what-do-they-enforce/a-63200711">compelled women to comply with the mandatory hijab law</a> through physical and verbal violence and humiliation — all part of a systematic effort to suppress and control their bodies. </p>
<p>The first spark of the growing protest movement came when <a href="https://www.siasat.com/watch-iranian-women-remove-headscarves-in-protest-at-mahsa-aminis-funeral-2415630/">Kurdish women attending Amini’s funeral in her hometown of Saqqez bravely took off their headscarves</a> and chanted the slogan “death to the dictator” at great risk to their own safety.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1572295695037796353"}"></div></p>
<p>After Amini’s death, the outrage and desperation of women came roaring through, targeting the dictatorial and patriarchal regime by <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/23/mahsa-amini-death-could-be-spark-broader-political-action-iran">demanding the liberation of female bodies</a>.</p>
<h2>History of resistance</h2>
<p>On Oct. 16 an Iranian sport climber, Elnaz Rekabi, competed without a hijab at a competition in South Korea while representing Iran. Rekabi later said her hijab had <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63309101">“inadvertently” fallen off</a>. However, many remained skeptical of her explanation, believing Iranian officials had pressured her to make the statement. Large crowds cheered Rekabi when she arrived back in Tehran days later.</p>
<p>While the current uprising may seem new, it follows decades of women’s resistance. Feminist activism in Iran goes back to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09612025.2012.657883">women participating in the Constitutional Revolution in 1906</a>. Women played a critical role and engaged in political actions by establishing women’s associations, joining protests and supporting strikes.</p>
<p>One month after the Islamic Revolution in 1979, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/sexual-politics-in-modern-iran/FE45625E63204DFBF52B982BF090F9D6">Iranian women launched massive demonstrations</a> after hearing whispers about a hijab mandate. Although those protests were able to postpone the mandate, it was eventually instated in 1983. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a large group of women marching down a street." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=402&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/492876/original/file-20221101-28522-sdjycw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=506&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women protesting against the impending hijab mandate in Tehran on March 8, 1979.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Hengameh Golestan/ Archaeology of the Final Decade)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Iranian women never stopped fighting. They turned their bodies into arenas of resistance against the ideology and intervention of the state. Acts of civil disobedience and campaigns like <a href="https://www.mystealthyfreedom.org/">My Stealthy Freedom</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-40218711">White Wednesdays</a>, <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/the-girls-of-revolution-street-waving-their-veils/">The Girls of Revolution Street</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/05/world/middleeast/iran-sexual-violence-metoo-women.html">Iranian #MeToo movement</a> were designed to sustain momentum in the fight against oppressive bodily regulation. </p>
<p>In Iran, women’s bodies have always been at the <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/abs/transnational-solidarity-with-which-muslim-women-the-case-of-the-my-stealthy-freedom-and-world-hijab-day-campaigns/1386C8F86EA1DF4946618BCABF5E3F3F">forefront of the political agenda</a>. Mandatory dress codes are a central feature of the regime’s policy towards women. They function as a policing apparatus to control women’s sexuality and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-18650-1_5">regulate their bodies</a>. </p>
<p>While <a href="https://women.ncr-iran.org/2020/11/22/violence-against-women-in-iran/">women face aggression on a daily basis</a> for not following the state’s gender and sexual proscriptions, stubborn forms of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09589236.2019.1597582">female bodily presence on social media</a> are an important part of the way women are able to fight the regime’s hegemonic narratives. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-powerless-victims-how-young-iranian-women-have-long-led-a-quiet-revolution-192188">Not 'powerless victims': how young Iranian women have long led a quiet revolution</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Under Iran’s authoritarian governments, <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/work-employment-and-society/article/abs/asef-bayat-street-politics-poor-peoples-movements-in-irannew-york-colombia-university-press-1997-4750-paper-1750-xxiii232-pp/2963498CB8047C891E81135FA1C9C8C7">collective action organized under strong leadership with effective networks of solidarity</a> has been challenging, especially in the post-Islamic revolution era.</p>
<p>However, digital spaces and social media is providing more room for Iranian women and sexual minorities <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-44227-3_11">to keep up their resistance</a> and pose <a href="https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003196457">critical challenges to the restrictive gender politics</a> of the regime.</p>
<h2>Alliance of marginalized groups</h2>
<p>The long struggle for women’s rights has taken more radical forms since Amini’s death. The protests against the mandatory hijab law have expanded and targeted the very foundations of the regime and its ideological taboos. <a href="https://crimethinc.com/2022/09/28/revolt-in-iran-the-feminist-resurrection-and-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-the-regime">By linking the protests to broader discussions of gender, ethnic, social, economic and political protests</a>, demonstrators have elevated it to a protest against the Islamic regime itself. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A woman wearing black cuts some of her hair with a pair of scissors." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/490471/original/file-20221018-14994-h1n2lb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An Iranian woman cuts her hair during a demonstration outside the Iranian embassy in Zagreb, Croatia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Amini’s identity as a Kurdish woman has made gender and ethnicity integral facets of the recent uprisings. It has created <a href="https://www.e-flux.com/notes/498605/tomorrow-was-shahrivar-1401-notes-on-the-iranian-uprisings">an inclusive alliance</a> among religious, sexual and gender minorities, as well as suppressed ethnicities such as Kurds, Arabs, Turks, Balochs, Lors and others.</p>
<p>It is as if this intersection of oppressed identities has targeted the position of the Persian, Shia and heterosexual man as the hegemonic representative of the nation. Amini’s death has become the rallying cry for all the other <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/466240">subaltern counterpublics</a> against the socio-political ideologies of the clerical regime.</p>
<p>Iranian women are de-ideologizing their bodies with anger <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/21/middleeast/iran-mahsa-amini-death-widespread-protests-intl-hnk">(cutting off their hair</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/ranarahimpour/status/1572295695037796353">burning their hijabs) and joy (dancing)</a>. The female body, having been an object and symbol of a theocratic ideology, is now emerging as the most serious threat to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/23/mahsa-amini-death-could-be-spark-broader-political-action-iran">legitimacy of the regime</a>. The ongoing uprising makes it clearer than ever that the liberated female body is the regime’s Achilles heel.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191551/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Niloofar Hooman receives funding from McMaster University's Graduate Student Scholarship.</span></em></p>Iranian women have a long history of campaigning for their rights. The latest protests bring together a host of religious and gender groups suppressed by the country’s clerical regime.Niloofar Hooman, PhD candidate, Communication Studies and Media Arts, McMaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1921882022-10-14T02:15:42Z2022-10-14T02:15:42ZNot ‘powerless victims’: how young Iranian women have long led a quiet revolution<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489488/original/file-20221013-23-ym4nec.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/EPA/Stringer</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The “Women, Life, Freedom” movement that has taken hold in Iran in recent weeks is not new. Young Iranian women have been involved in small but consistent evolutionary actions during the entire 44 years of the Islamic Republic of Iran, particularly in the past two decades. </p>
<p>The initial movement goes back to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, the year radical Islamic groups took power. Street protests, the so-called “<a href="https://jia.sipa.columbia.edu/evolution-toward-revolution-development-street-protests-islamic-republic-iran">evolution toward revolution</a>”, have accelerated since 2017.</p>
<p>In all these movements, women have been courageous and bold. Key demonstrations include:</p>
<ul>
<li>student protest on the <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/Iran_Student_Protests/1182717.html">closure of a reformist newspaper</a> (1999) </li>
<li><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html">protest</a> about the irregularities in the presidential election (2009)</li>
<li>protest against the government’s economic policies (2017-2018)</li>
<li>Bloody November (2019)/Bloody Aban (2020) <a href="https://guitinews.fr/en/a-chaud-en/bloody-november-protests/">protests</a>, caused by the significant increase in fuel prices. </li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489479/original/file-20221012-21-79p6rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489479/original/file-20221012-21-79p6rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489479/original/file-20221012-21-79p6rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489479/original/file-20221012-21-79p6rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489479/original/file-20221012-21-79p6rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489479/original/file-20221012-21-79p6rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489479/original/file-20221012-21-79p6rl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Iranians protest fuel price hikes with their cars in Tehran, November 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Young Iranian women position themselves as agents of social change. They are not, as they are often represented outside Iran, powerless victims. They have always been at the forefront of breaking down social boundaries and taboos. </p>
<p>They have <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539519302870">been fighting</a> to enhance their social status through education and career development.</p>
<p>They believe in evolution (small yet strong and consistent change), rather than sudden revolution (temporary and unsustainable change). The idea is that incremental change can lead to another unsuccessful revolution, such as in 1979. </p>
<p>In <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277539519302870">our research</a>, we spoke to 391 women aged 18-35 from Shiraz, one of the biggest cities in Iran. We found that their evolutionary actions can be captured by key themes: they may seem ordinary, but they represent what young Iranian women are fighting for. They are not looking for something extraordinary. They only want to exercise some level of control over their basic rights.</p>
<p><strong>1. Developing multiple identities.</strong> Young Iranian women must manage multiple identities due to the oppressive system. They feel their values, behaviour and actions are not aligned – and not truly free – because of the contradictory expectations their society places on them. They feel they are not always free to be their true selves. </p>
<p>They have used the creation of multiple identities as a coping strategy to be accepted by their society in different stages of their lives, from childhood to university, marriage and working life. As one young woman in our research observed:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Iranian women always should jump from a barrier [to achieve the most obvious rights they have], the barrier of traditional families, the barrier of (morality) police, the barrier of culture. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Another participant said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>My fake identity has been the dominant identity and I have not had a chance to be the real me.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>2. Building digital freedom.</strong> Iranian women use social media to engage in national and international online social protest groups, exchange information and generate ideas on how to tackle social challenges in their society. Despite the government’s active crackdown on international social media platforms, young Iranians still find innovative ways of accessing them. </p>
<p>Social media have increased social, cultural and political awareness among the young generation, and this appears to be increasing the gap between younger and older generations of the country. One woman told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Although satellite TV and some of the social networks [such as Facebook] are banned in Iran, young generations try to have access, using different anti-filters.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>3. Creating a unique style of dressing.</strong> Research <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448">has found</a> that most young Iranians are against mandatory hijab. It is not a cultural issue in Iran, but rather a very restrictive and radical Islamic law, which is one of the key foundations of the Islamic Republic of Iran. </p>
<p>The regime assumes that if the rules around mandatory hijab break down, other pillars of the Islamic Republic will be in danger. So protests against hijab – as we are seeing in Iran – challenge the legitimacy of the regime. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-challenge-legitimacy-of-islamic-republic-191958">Iran: 'hijab' protests challenge legitimacy of Islamic Republic</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
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<p>Young Iranian women have a high level of education and awareness, respecting different cultures, beliefs, religions and dress codes. They only want to have freedom of choice. As one woman told us: “Islamic leaders want us to hide our beauty.” </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489489/original/file-20221013-11-zwcnmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489489/original/file-20221013-11-zwcnmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489489/original/file-20221013-11-zwcnmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489489/original/file-20221013-11-zwcnmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489489/original/file-20221013-11-zwcnmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489489/original/file-20221013-11-zwcnmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489489/original/file-20221013-11-zwcnmg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The current protests in Iran were triggered by the death in custody of 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Hawre Khalid/AP/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448">recent study</a> found the majority of Iranians (58%) did not believe in the practice of wearing hijab. Only 23% agreed with the compulsory hijab, which is respected by the rest of the population: people do not want hijab abolished, they just want freedom of choice. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448">Iran protests: majority of people reject compulsory hijab and an Islamic regime, surveys find</a>
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<p><strong>4. Creating hidden leisure opportunities</strong>. Young Iranian women try to create more opportunities to express the enjoyable yet hidden parts of their life. As one woman said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We prefer to stay at home and have our gatherings and parties in private places, as we find indoor activities more interesting because we don’t have the limitations of dressing, drinking, female-male interactions.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>5. Changing social and sexual relationships.</strong> Our research found Iranian women believe the limitations on social and sexual relationships can result in psychological and social health issues. In addition, they believe limitations on relationships before marriage can result in unsuccessful marriages. </p>
<p>Young Iranian women use different strategies to keep their relationships. One specific example is the creation of “<a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/ame/15/1/ame150105.xml">white marriage</a>” – where a man and a woman live together without passing the Islamic process of marriage in Iran. </p>
<p>In many of these movements, Iranian women also find support from men (despite the general perception), particularly in the young generations, who equate a push for gender equality and women’s rights with a more democratic society. </p>
<p>They know that fighting for gender equality is everyone’s job, to enhance awareness and bring about change. There can be no democracy without first respecting women’s rights and restoring their dignity and freedom.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192188/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>
This study was funded by Griffith University and supported by both Griffith University and Shiraz University of Medical Sciences. </span></em></p>In a range of ways, young Iranian women – with the support of men – are working to change their lives and with that, their country.Nasim Salehi, Senior Lecturer and Course Coordinator, Southern Cross UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1921652022-10-12T19:02:45Z2022-10-12T19:02:45ZWomen-led protests in Iran gather momentum - but will they be enough to bring about change?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489298/original/file-20221012-12-97xt09.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests following the death of Iranian woman Mahsa Amini have spread to other countries, including Lebanon.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wael Hamzeh/EPA/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As protests in Iran drag on into their fourth week over the violent death in custody of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/irans-protests-are-the-first-counterrevolution-led-by-women">Mahsa Amini</a>, a young Kurdish woman, there are two central questions.</p>
<p>The first is whether these protests involving women and girls across Iran are different from upheavals in the past, or will simply end the same way with the regime stifling a popular uprising.</p>
<p>The second question is what can, and should, the outside world do about extraordinarily brave demonstrations against an ageing and ruthless regime that has shown itself to be unwilling, and possibly unable, to allow greater freedoms?</p>
<p>The symbolic issue for Iran’s protest movement is a requirement, imposed by morality police, that women and girls wear the hijab, or headscarf. In reality, these protests are the result of a much wider revolt against discrimination and prejudice.</p>
<p>Put simply, women are fed up with a regime that has sought to impose rigid rules on what is, and is not, permissible for women in a theocratic society whose guidelines are little changed since the overthrow of the Shah in 1979.</p>
<p>Women are serving multi-year jail sentences for simply refusing to wear the hijab.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/EZMvrkU_eEY?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
</figure>
<p>Two other issues are also at play. One is the economic deprivation suffered by Iranians under the weight of persistent sanctions, rampant inflation and the continuing catastrophic decline in the value of the Iranian riyal.</p>
<p>The other issue is the fact Mahsa Amini, the 22-year-old whose death sparked the protests, was a Kurd.</p>
<p>The Kurds, who constitute about 10% of Iran’s 84 million population, feel themselves to be a persecuted minority. Tensions between the central government in Tehran and Kurds in their homeland on the boundaries of Iraq, Syria and Turkey are endemic.</p>
<p>Another important question is where all this leaves negotiations on the revival of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Comprehensive_Plan_of_Action">Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action</a> (JCPOA). The JCPOA had been aimed at freezing Iran’s nuclear weapons ambitions. Former President Donald Trump recklessly abandoned the 2015 agreement in 2018.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-iran-nuclear-talks-are-resuming-but-is-there-any-trust-left-to-strike-a-deal-171937">The Iran nuclear talks are resuming, but is there any trust left to strike a deal?</a>
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<p>The Biden administration, along with its United Nations Security Council partners plus Germany, had been making progress in those negotiations, but those efforts are now stalled, if not frozen.</p>
<p>The spectacle of Iranian security forces violently putting down demonstrations in cities, towns and villages across Iran will make it virtually impossible in the short term for the US and its negotiating partners to negotiate a revised JCPOA with Tehran.</p>
<p>Russia’s use of <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/russias-use-of-iranian-kamikaze-drones-creates-new-dangers-for-ukrainian-troops-11663415140">Iranian-supplied “kamikaze” drones</a> against Ukrainian targets will have further soured the atmosphere.</p>
<h2>How will the US and its allies respond?</h2>
<p>So will the US and its allies continue to tighten Iranian sanctions? And to what extent will the West seek to encourage and support protesters on the ground in Iran?</p>
<p>One initiative that is already underway is helping the protest movement to circumvent regime attempts to shut down electronic communications.</p>
<p>Elon Musk <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/musk-says-activating-starlink-response-blinken-internet-freedom-iran-2022-09-23/">has announced</a> he is activating his Starlink satellites to provide a vehicle for social media communications in Iran. Musk did the same thing in Ukraine to get around Russian attempts to shut down Ukrainian communications by taking out a European satellite system.</p>
<p>However, amid the spectacle of women and girls being shot and tear-gassed on Iranian streets, the moral dilemma for the outside world is this: how far the West is prepared to go in its backing for the protesters.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489300/original/file-20221012-14-inn17m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489300/original/file-20221012-14-inn17m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489300/original/file-20221012-14-inn17m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489300/original/file-20221012-14-inn17m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489300/original/file-20221012-14-inn17m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489300/original/file-20221012-14-inn17m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489300/original/file-20221012-14-inn17m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Since the Iranian protests began there have also been pro-government rallies in response.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It is one thing to express sympathy; it is another to take concrete steps to support the widespread agitation. This was also the conundrum during the Arab Spring of 2010 that brought down regimes in US-friendly countries like Egypt and Tunisia.</p>
<p>It should not be forgotten, in light of contemporary events, that Iran and Russia propped up Syria’s Assad regime during the Arab Spring, saving it from a near certain end.</p>
<p>In this latest period, the Middle East may not be on fire, as it was a decade or so ago, but it remains highly unstable. Iran’s neighbour, Iraq, is effectively without a government after months of violent agitation. The war in Yemen is threatening to spark up again, adding to uncertainties in the Gulf.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/3-ways-these-latest-iran-demonstrations-are-different-to-past-protests-191418">3 ways these latest Iran demonstrations are different to past protests</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In a geopolitical sense, Washington has to reckon with inroads Moscow has been making in relations with Gulf States, including, notably, Saudi Arabia.</p>
<p>The recent OPEC Plus decision to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2022/10/06/opec-production-cut-recession-europe/">limit oil production</a> constituted a slap to the US ahead of the mid-term elections in which fuel prices will be a potent issue.</p>
<p>In other words, Washington’s ability to influence events in the Middle East is eroding, partly as a consequence of a disastrous attempt to remake the region by going to war in Iraq in 2003.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489297/original/file-20221012-12-dh8fn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489297/original/file-20221012-12-dh8fn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489297/original/file-20221012-12-dh8fn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489297/original/file-20221012-12-dh8fn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489297/original/file-20221012-12-dh8fn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489297/original/file-20221012-12-dh8fn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489297/original/file-20221012-12-dh8fn2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The US’s ability to influence the Middle East is much weaker than before it went to war in Iraq in 2003.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Susan Walsh/AP/AAP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A volatile region</h2>
<p>Among the consequences of that misjudgement is the empowerment of Iran in conjunction with a Shia majority in Iraq. This should have been foreseen.</p>
<p>So quite apart from the waves of protest in Iran, the region is a tinderbox with multiple unresolved conflicts.</p>
<p>In Afghanistan, on the fringes of the Middle East, women protesters have taken the lead in recent days from their Iranian sisters and have been protesting against conservative dress codes and limitations on access to education under the Taliban.</p>
<p>This returns us to the moral issue of the extent to which the outside world should support the protests. In this, the experience of the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/jun/14/iran-tehran-election-results-riots">“green” rebellion of 2009</a> on Iran’s streets is relevant.</p>
<p>Then, the Obama administration, after initially giving encouragement to the demonstrations, pulled back on the grounds it did not wish to jeopardise negotiations on a nuclear deal with Iran or undermine the protests by attaching US support.</p>
<p>Officials involved in the administration, who are now back in the Biden White House, believe that approach was a mistake. However, that begs the question as to what practically the US and its allies can do to stop Iran’s assault on its own women and girls.</p>
<p>What if, as a consequence of Western encouragement to the demonstrators, many hundreds more die or are incarcerated? What is the end result, beyond indulging in the usual rhetorical exercises such as expressing “concern” and threatening to ramp up sanctions that hurt individual Iranians more than the regime itself?</p>
<p>The bottom line is that irrespective of what might be the desired outcome, Iran’s regime is unlikely to crumble. It might be shaken, it might entertain concerns that its own revolution that replaced the Shah is in danger of being replicated, but it would be naïve to believe that a rotting 43-year-old edifice would be anything but utterly ruthless in putting an end to the demonstrations.</p>
<p>This includes unrest in the oil industry, in which workers are expressing solidarity with the demonstrators. The oil worker protest will be concerning the regime, given the centrality of oil production to Iran’s economy.</p>
<p>However, a powerful women’s movement has been unleashed in Iran. Over time, this movement may well force a theocratic regime to loosen restrictions on women and their participation in the political life of the country. That is the hope, but as history has shown, a ruthless regime will stop at little to re-assert its control.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192165/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tony Walker is a board member of The Conversation.</span></em></p>A powerful protest movement has taken hold in Iran following the death of Mahsa Amini. It may affect change, but it is up against a ruthless regime that will not easily relinquish control.Tony Walker, Vice-chancellor's fellow, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1914732022-10-10T12:21:01Z2022-10-10T12:21:01ZHeadcovers have always been political in Iran – for women on all sides<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487931/original/file-20221003-6349-re74wm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=16%2C0%2C1005%2C682&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iranian newspaper headlines about the protests that started with death of Mahsa Amini.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/iranian-newspapers-make-headlines-about-the-protests-that-news-photo/1243422453?phrase=tehran%20protest&adppopup=true">Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A friend and I were strolling through Tehran’s streets one afternoon when she was approached by a member of the “morality police,” an agency tasked with enforcing modesty laws in public. First, the policewoman warned her to cover her hair by pulling forward her scarf. Next, she was ordered to remove her sunglasses. </p>
<p>“What do you have there?” the policewoman asked loudly, examining my friend’s green eyes for makeup. There was none, but her stare was full of hate. “Behave yourself!” the policewoman warned. </p>
<p>As we walked away, my friend stopped, turned and looked back at her, pulling the scarf back again while putting her sunglasses back on. Her husband lamented, “Woman, one of these days you will be arrested, and if lucky you will be alive when I come to pick you up from the police station.” </p>
<p>This was 30 years ago. Similar scenes still play out daily. Since mid-September 2022, when a young woman named Mahsa Amini <a href="https://apnews.com/article/iran-middle-east-arrests-iraq-51a53a5fa8f13de08c33916a3be865a1">died in detention</a> after being detained for not wearing her headscarf “properly,” protests against the morality police and the broader regime have erupted across the country and from sympathizers around the world.</p>
<p>Acts of defiance, big and small, have continued uninterrupted across multiple generations. Women’s activism has been constant, as has their imprisonment.</p>
<h2>Role of the state</h2>
<p>In Persian culture, the main variation of the veil has historically been the chador, a long cloak covering the body from head to toe, which the wearer holds closed in front of her. </p>
<p>Early women’s groups did not push back against it. Instead, they focused mainly on raising the marriage age, granting more rights to women in cases of divorce and custody and allowing girls to attend school. During the 1920s, some began to address the veil, as <a href="https://dornsife-poir.usc.edu/person/eliz-sanasarian/">I wrote</a> about in <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/8451209">my book</a> on the women’s rights movement.</p>
<p>This was a risky move. For example, when a woman’s magazine in the city of Mashhad published an editorial in favor of unveiling and equal rights, the editor’s house was looted and she had to flee, though she continued her work in other cities. </p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="A black and white portrait of the head of a woman with ear-length dark hair, with a serious expression." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488431/original/file-20221006-14-ftg0d5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488431/original/file-20221006-14-ftg0d5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488431/original/file-20221006-14-ftg0d5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488431/original/file-20221006-14-ftg0d5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488431/original/file-20221006-14-ftg0d5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488431/original/file-20221006-14-ftg0d5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488431/original/file-20221006-14-ftg0d5.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1035&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women’s rights pioneer Sediqeh Dowlatabadi.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Sedigheh_Dowlatabadi01.jpg">'Iranian women in Mashrouteh movement,' by Abdolhossein Nahid/Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Around the same time, in the city of Isfahan, another publication owned by a feminist who advocated unveiling <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/8451209">barely escaped</a> a mob attack. The journalist, Sediqeh Dowlatabadi, left instructions that no veiled woman should be allowed to participate in her burial or visit her grave.</p>
<p>The founder of the Pahlavi Dynasty, Reza Shah, <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202201070683">banned the veil</a> in 1936 as part of his modernization program. By most accounts, this edict left an overwhelming majority of women, who had been veiled most of their lives, <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10080461">in a state of shock</a> and isolation. Many did not leave their houses until the state allowed the wearing of hats and scarves. </p>
<p>When Reza Shah was forced <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/fall-of-reza-shah-9780755638093/">to abdicate</a> in favor of his son Mohammad Reza Shah in 1941, the prohibition was disbanded and headcovers returned in full force. During his reign the veil became optional in public. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A black and white photograph shows two dozen women formally posed in two rows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487920/original/file-20221003-14932-ii4dbp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487920/original/file-20221003-14932-ii4dbp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487920/original/file-20221003-14932-ii4dbp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487920/original/file-20221003-14932-ii4dbp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487920/original/file-20221003-14932-ii4dbp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487920/original/file-20221003-14932-ii4dbp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487920/original/file-20221003-14932-ii4dbp.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=578&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Board of directors of Jam'iyat-e Nesvan-e Vatankhah, or Society of Patriotic Women, a women’s rights association in Tehran in the 1920s and 1930s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Jam%27iat_e_nesvan_e_vatan-khah01.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yet the psychological and cultural aspects were rarely discussed or debated. I recall schoolmates of mine who were unveiled in school, but when our bus reached their neighborhood, they covered their heads before disembarking. Duality was the name of the game.</p>
<h2>Role of the revolution</h2>
<p>With the fall of monarchy in 1979 and the subsequent rise of the Islamist government, the headcover issue returned with a vengeance.</p>
<p>At this stage not only were many women wearing chadors, but a second variation of headcover emerged: an often but not always black veil that fit the head closely and a coatlike covering that loosely covered the body. During the past few decades, however, women have been allowed to wear a scarf instead.</p>
<p>The first <a href="https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/women-protesting-hijab-1979/">demonstrations against the new rules</a> were held in 1979 when authorities declared that female government employees must wear the hijab and lasted five days. The compulsory hijab went into effect in June 1980, sparking demonstrations by women dressed in black attire as a symbol for their loss of freedom. All women’s demonstrations were met with violence.</p>
<p>There were many women – often referred to as traditional, religious or pro-regime – who favored forced veiling, <a href="https://www.timesofisrael.com/thousands-attend-government-backed-pro-hijab-rallies-in-iran/">as there are today</a>. Yet, it is never easy in Iran to speak of positions along simple party lines. There were practicing Muslim women who were veiled but opposed forced veiling. On the other hand, there were men and women on the left who did not see a problem with forced headcovers, arguing there were more important issues to be addressed.</p>
<p>During the early days of the revolution, female members of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511492259">recognized religious minorities</a> such as Zoroastrians and ethnic Christian groups opposed the forced headcover as well. They argued that the government’s order went against <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iran_1989.pdf?lang=en">the constitution</a>, which permitted every community to adhere to its own traditions. A small group of women wore their traditional historical attire in public, as a substitute, but were ordered to stop.</p>
<p>By 1985, all minority school girls were ordered to wear the Islamic headcover and full body attire. Teachers instructed mothers to cover their daughters’ heads while testing them on spelling and dictation at home, in order for the children to get used to hearing muffled words through the headcover.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/8451209">critical significance of the hijab</a> in the state’s eyes was best expressed by the first supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini: “if the Islamic Revolution had no other outcome but the veiling of women, this in and of itself is enough for the Revolution.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A group of girls in black robes poses in front of a fountain as a woman takes their photograph." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487922/original/file-20221003-3479-r7qnn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487922/original/file-20221003-3479-r7qnn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487922/original/file-20221003-3479-r7qnn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487922/original/file-20221003-3479-r7qnn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=404&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487922/original/file-20221003-3479-r7qnn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487922/original/file-20221003-3479-r7qnn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/487922/original/file-20221003-3479-r7qnn6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=508&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Veiled girls in Tehran in 1986.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/groupe-de-jeunes-filles-voil%C3%A9es-en-1986-%C3%A0-t%C3%A9h%C3%A9ran-lran-news-photo/947974826?phrase=iran%20veil&adppopup=true">Eslami Rad/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images</a></span>
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<h2>Pushing back</h2>
<p>Women in Iran have never been passive. To the contrary, they have put the regime on the defensive whenever possible by employing their own logic and interpretations of Islam. The state elite have been pontificating on gender for more than 40 years, and women’s rights activism has been just as constant.</p>
<p>What the authorities did not seem to realize was that their own comments and actions sparked women’s consciousness. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004474130_006">Every time they compared Muslim women with Western women</a>, arguing that women have been oppressed in the West but not in Islam, they raised awareness. And every time authorities admitted that oppression of women was ongoing in Iranian society, they raised demands. At one point, pro-regime women protested against lax dress codes for men, and authorities were forced to admit that they too must observe modest dress codes and behavior.</p>
<p>The last 10 years have brought two extremely important developments. First is the sharp rise in education levels among women and girls. Today, the majority of university students are women. Yet their participation in the labor force <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2017/05/25/its-mens-club/discrimination-against-women-irans-job-market">is only 17%</a>, and according to the Global Gender Gap report, Iran <a href="https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2022/in-full/1-benchmarking-gender-gaps-2022#1-6-in-focus-country-performances">ranks 143rd out of 146 countries</a> for gender equality and economic participation. With education comes rising expectations; unfulfilled expectations foment deep frustration and anger.</p>
<p>Second is the role of the internet and social media. Research shows that in the age of <a href="https://upcolorado.com/university-press-of-colorado/item/3545-the-nature-of-hope">leaderless movements</a>, they are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20700-7">powerful tools for mobilization</a>. The problem is that governments also have access to these tools – and strong security forces.</p>
<p>These transformational forces are powerful instigators of discontent and go far beyond a headcover issue. Today’s protests began with the hijab <a href="https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/iran-protests-explained">but have expanded</a> to include economic frustrations, desire for freedom, the environment and other issues.</p>
<p>In the past, major demonstrations were crushed, including <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/world/middleeast/14iran.html">the 2009 uprising</a> when protesters claimed incumbent president Mahmud Ahmadinejad had stolen the election. But regardless of how the current protests turn out, they underscore that the headcover issue is not going away – and has the potential to amplify anti-regime sentiments in Iran <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/10/03/1126603977/iran-mahsa-amini-solidarity-protests">and abroad</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191473/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Eliz Sanasarian received funding from
United States Agency for International Development Grant (with several colleagues), 2006-2009 for work on street children and HIV/AIDS in Kenya, Africa.</span></em></p>Controversy of veils goes back more than a century, a scholar of Iran explains.Eliz Sanasarian, Professor of Political Science and Gender and Sexuality Studies, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and SciencesLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1917862022-10-10T12:11:30Z2022-10-10T12:11:30ZIran: the hijab protests are now massive, but a revolution will need the military to change sides<p>More than three weeks after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-hijab-protests-challenge-legitimacy-of-islamic-republic-191958">death of 22-year-old Mahsa Ahmini</a> for disobeying Iran’s strict laws, which make it compulsory for women to wear the hijab – or Islamic headscarf – protests continue to rage on the streets of all major cities. On Saturday, protesters even managed to hack into <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/09/iranian-state-tv-hijacked-pictures-women-killed-protests-supreme/">Iran’s biggest news channel</a> to broadcast their message to the whole country.</p>
<p>A broadcast featuring supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, in a meeting with state officials, was replaced by images of protesters who have died in the violent crackdown on dissent in Iran. The popular chant, “<a href="https://theconversation.com/iranian-women-burning-their-hijabs-are-striking-at-the-islamic-republics-brand-191809">woman, life, freedom</a>”, which has become the slogan of the protests, had been incorporated into a song, an excerpt of which was broadcast as were calls for viewers to “join us and rise up”.</p>
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<p>It is estimated that <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/09/iranian-security-forces-arresting-children-in-school-reports-claim-state-tv-hackers">185 people</a>, including at least 19 children, have been killed since news of Amini’s death emerged on September 16. It has been reported that <a href="https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/10/09/iranian-state-tv-hijacked-pictures-women-killed-protests-supreme/">14 members of Iran’s security forces</a> have also been killed.</p>
<p>The “hijab protests” have grown from the outrage of Iranian feminists at the country’s oppressive morality police to a general expression of resistance and discontent with the Islamic Republic itself. There have been <a href="https://www.iranintl.com/en/202210080138">reports of general strikes</a> in several cities. </p>
<p>There are parallels with the 1979 revolution that toppled the last shah of Iran. Women played a <a href="https://www.wilsoncenter.org/article/reconstructed-lives-women-and-irans-islamic-revolution">major role</a> in that uprising, too, wearing the hijab to show their rejection of the ban on the head covering <a href="https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/eurocrisispress/2022/05/25/the-cultural-veil">decreed by the shah’s father</a> in 1936 – later overturned, but still a symbol of the repressive monarchy. </p>
<p>But, if the 1979 revolution delivered the long-sought-after independence from western imperialism, it also delivered the people of Iran to an authoritarian brand of patriarchy. And the hijab, which many women had taken to wearing in defiance of the shah’s regime, quickly became a tool of the Islamic Republic’s oppression of women.</p>
<p>But the rise of the Islamic Republic’s morality police, enforcing gender separation in public, and increasingly in private, affected everyone’s freedom: men and women alike. As in 1979, protests have been fiercest in schools and universities, but there are signs they are spreading to a broader cross-section of society. Many people are angry at the regime’s handling of the economy in the face of western sanctions and the hardline government’s seeming incompetence in negotiating a deal with Washington that could lessen the impact of those restrictions.</p>
<h2>This is not a revolution</h2>
<p>I’ve been asked several times in the past three weeks the same questions as I was asked during the mass protests of 2009: “Is this a revolution? Will it bring down the regime?” My answer has to be analytical. In the so-called “<a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/a-decade-after-iran-s-green-movement-some-lessons/">Green Movement</a>” of 2009, hundreds of thousands of Iranians took to the streets to protest the disputed re-election of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Then too, the killing of a young Iranian woman, 26-year-old <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/world/middleeast/23neda.html">Neda Agha-Soltan</a> – who was shot during an anti-government protest – enraged the populace even further.</p>
<p>At the time, I wrote an article for The Guardian, which was given the headline: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/jun/23/iran-revolution-unrest-protest">Iran: This is not a revolution</a>. The article pointed out the differences between the mass protests that year and the revolution of 1979 that had toppled the late shah – not only the problem the protesters had in identifying a “bad guy” to blame, but also pointing out that the regime was open to a degree of flexibility and concession. The same headline could be used now to describe recent events. And here’s what <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/on-the-arab-revolts-and-the-iranian-revolution-9781472589040/">my research</a> suggests to me.</p>
<p>For a start, governments in general have become more adept at using technology to manage populations. There has been widespread use of social media in Iran, which has high internet penetration and a generation of tech-savvy youth learning how to use online tools to mobilise opposition. But the Islamic Republic is also adept at <a href="https://rsf.org/en/how-islamic-republic-has-enslaved-iran-s-internet">controlling cyberspace</a>, even those who try to use virtual private networks and other technology used by Iranians to escape censorship.</p>
<p>And, unlike in 1979, there is no charismatic leader ready to assume the revolutionary mantle. This is, thus far, a movement without leaders – and revolutions tend to need a figurehead for whom people are prepared to take risks – a Lenin, Mao, Castro or, as in 1979, an Ayatollah Khomeini. </p>
<p>I must just add one caveat here. One of the main enforcers for the Islamic Republic is the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/topic/Islamic-Revolutionary-Guard-Corps">Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps</a> (IRGC). If the IRGC decided to remain in its barracks or refused to fire on protesters if ordered, this could change everything. This refusal to cause further bloodshed would need to be widespread and not merely sporadic. </p>
<p>There is, so far, no indication that this is likely to happen. But the popular fury at the killing of Mahsa Amini – along with the deaths of several other young women for the crime of demanding justice and freedom – can only undermine the crumbling edifice of Iran’s increasingly unpopular theocracy.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191786/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Arshin Adib-Moghaddam does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 1979 the decision of military commanders not to fire on protesters led to the revolution. There is no sign of that yet.Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, Professor in Global Thought and Comparative Philosophies, SOAS, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1920372022-10-07T14:50:37Z2022-10-07T14:50:37ZHijab law in Iran over the decades: the continuing battle for reform<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488757/original/file-20221007-20-knocfs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Protests have happened all over the world in support of the anti-hijab movement in Iran.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Denise Laura Baker/Alamy Stock Photo</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Protests have quickly spread <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mp2fLcx0fk4">across Iran</a> calling for a change in the law after the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of the morality police. </p>
<p>The young woman was accused of violating rules on wearing hijab in public. The term hijab is an Arabic word meaning cover. However, it has been used to refer to different types of covering since 1970, from a long-sleeved coat, pants and scarf to the Islamic government’s preferred form of dress, <em>chador</em>, which is a loose-fitting black cloth covering the entire body. </p>
<p>Two quite different forms of law, from opposite ideologies, have been used to try to control women and the covering of their hair and body in the last 90 years.</p>
<p>The first attempt to use hijab as the subject of legislation was in 1936 by a new monarch, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Reza-Shah-Pahlavi#ref118407">Reza Shah</a> (1925-1941), who wanted to force women to <a href="https://iranicaonline.org/articles/feminist-movements-iii">remove the veil</a> in public under his “unveiling” order. The shah’s vision of modernity, influenced by Turkish leader <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Kemal-Ataturk">Mustafa Kemal Ataturk</a>, included changing what Iranian women wore. </p>
<p>From 1941 to 1979 there was no law that instructed women what to wear, but many women still wore headscarves either as a statement against the monarchy or because their choices were restricted by patriarchal values such as <em>namus</em> (honour) and the strict control of male <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/40971478">members of the family</a>.</p>
<p>The 1979 Islamic revolution introduced the idea of <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3178098">hijab law</a>. On March 8 1979, thousands of Iranian women marched in the street, protesting the idea of imposing hijab with slogans such as “freedom of <a href="http://assets.cambridge.org/97805215/95728/frontmatter/9780521595728_frontmatter.pdf">choice in clothes</a>”. Wearing hijab became obligatory for all Iranian women from <a href="https://press.syr.edu/supressbooks/1685/veils-and-words/">April 1983</a>. Since then, all women have been legally obliged to wear hijab in public, even non-Muslims and foreigners visiting Iran. </p>
<p>Over the years, the Islamic government has introduced even more legal measures and social restrictions to enforce mandatory hijab laws. Criminal punishment for those violating the law was introduced in the 1990s and ranged from imprisonment to fines.</p>
<p>However, there was a different shift in policing the way women in Tehran dressed, starting in January 2018. According to this new decree, women who did not observe the Islamic dress code no longer faced fines or imprisonment but rather had to attend Islam educational classes. “Women will no longer be taken to detention centres, nor will judicial cases be filed against them,” said local media reports citing Tehran police chief General <a href="https://www.globalcitizen.org/fr/content/islamic-dress-code-tehran-women-arrest-iran/">Hossein Rahimi</a>.</p>
<p>In such cases the morality police, Gasht-e Ershad, usually escort women to a police van and then to a class. The women are then required to sign a form saying they will not commit the “bad hijabi” offence again, and forced to take part in police-organised “guidance” to learn how they should observe Islamic values. This new order only applies in the capital Tehran – but even there, women who broke the dress code repeatedly could still be subject to legal action.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448">Iran protests: majority of people reject compulsory hijab and an Islamic regime, surveys find</a>
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<p>Beyond the discriminatory aspects of the mandatory dress code, one important legal issue is that the crime of “bad hijabi” or “improper hijab” is not defined by the law. Because the law is very loosely drawn, enforcers such as the morality police can choose to interpret it differently and crack down on women in various ways.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Young women on the streets of Iran protesting over dress codes and the killing of a young woman.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Path to law reform</h2>
<p>Iran’s existing laws and legal practices draw from different sources, ranging from constitutional law, legislation and government bylaws to customs and Islamic <a href="https://iranicaonline.org/articles/shiite-doctrine-iii">principles</a>.</p>
<p>Article 146 of the constitution binds the judge who “endeavours
to judge each case on the basis of the written law. In case of the absence
of any such law, s/he has to deliver his judgment on the basis of authoritative <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/access-to-justice-in-iran/531BC4341E21B904058E8B42E37EA442">Islamic sources”</a>.</p>
<p>The way Iranian women dress differs across different parts of the country and according to cultures, socioeconomic backgrounds, political views and religious beliefs. The mandatory hijab law is not only about taking away women’s control of their bodies in public. It affects every aspect of everyday life in Iran. For example, it forces the segregation of the sexes and promotes censorship (women are not allowed to appear without hijab on TV or in movies).</p>
<p>During the last few decades, Iranian women’s groups have fought to change this law. Every day, they have fought the state’s notion of “proper dress” by choosing what they wear, their fashion, their make-up, the way they walk out of their houses. In every step they take in public, they have challenged the discriminatory law that can stop and tell them that their <a href="https://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813056463">personal choices</a> are “improper”. In doing so, they put themselves at risk of criminal punishment ranging from imprisonment to fines.</p>
<p>Even though compulsory hijab has been instituted, criminalised and promoted as the main Islamic state gender policy, women’s efforts to negotiate their rights have been brave and remarkable. This continuing quest for justice, gender equality and freedom of choice has been embodied in the “women, life, freedom” <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/23/mahsa-amini-protests-iranian-women-risking-death">slogan</a>.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Protests in Iran.</span></figcaption>
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<p>In these protests, both in the streets and on social media, Iranian women (and men) are calling for the obligatory hijab law to be abolished. Surveys suggest <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protests-majority-of-people-reject-compulsory-hijab-and-an-islamic-regime-surveys-find-191448">public opinion</a> is widely behind a change in the law. Opposition has grown over the last few weeks, driven by social media and <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2906557">hashtag activism</a>. There is hope that public demands to reform the obligatory dress code in Iran will create change.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/192037/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sahar Maranlou does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Protesters call for a change in rules over what women are forced to wear in Iran. An expert tells us what the law says.Sahar Maranlou, Lecturer, School of Law, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1914752022-10-07T12:19:41Z2022-10-07T12:19:41ZHijab rules have nothing to do with Islamic tenets and everything to do with repressing women<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488332/original/file-20221005-20-9rxvpu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C4958%2C3292&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Thousands of Iranians have taken to the streets to protest the death of Mahsa Amini.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TurkeyIranProtest/8df67af81f5645be8ce8fa94f7d7958e/photo?Query=iran&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=57388&currentItemNo=57">AP Photo/Emrah Gurel</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in 2022 after she was held by Iran’s morality police for not complying with the country’s hijab rules drew global attention to the repression of women in Iran. Neighboring Saudi Arabia, <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-is-the-shia-sunni-divide-78216">a Sunni country</a>, <a href="https://www.history.com/news/sunni-shia-divide-islam-muslim">theologically and politically opposed</a> to Shiite Iran, has similar restrictive rules when it comes to women. </p>
<p>The connection between <a href="https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745322162/islamic-activists/">faith and practice</a> in the Muslim world at large lies <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/346158554_Social_Justice_in_Islam_By_Deina_Abdelkader_Herndon_VA_International_Institute_of_Islamic_Thought_2000_216_pages">at the heart of my research</a>. A wider look at some of the Muslim majority countries shows that even when they may claim to be diametrically opposed ideologically, they often have similar religious police, or other rules for enforcing faith in everyday life. Moreover, it is my belief, they have nothing to do with Islamic tenets. </p>
<p>In many Muslim majority countries, imposing barriers on women has been a way of informing the world what kind of policy and ideology the government believes in.</p>
<h2>Market inspectors turned into morality police</h2>
<p>The closest thing to the morality police of today to be found in early Islamic history is the “<a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/article/558587">Muhtasib,” or observers</a>. The Muhtasib, who had to know Islamic law, were appointed by the ruler, such as the sultan in Ottoman times, to oversee matters of trade. <a href="https://www.brown.edu/Departments/Joukowsky_Institute/courses/afterpharaohs2010/13942.html">The Muhtasib’s job was to</a> make sure that traders were using correct measures and weights, paying taxes and maintaining hygienic conditions in their establishments. </p>
<p>More generally <a href="https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=facultyworkingpapers">they would observe public actions</a> and had the jurisdiction to reprimand and at times penalize people. They were not known to target women, and they respected the beliefs of multiple faiths that existed at the time. In contemporary Iran, the rules on head covering are upheld for all women, even if they’re not Muslim.</p>
<p>Islam’s basic tenets are that humans share a direct relationship with God without the interference of individuals or any organizations. The Quran <a href="https://quran.com/en">does not stipulate</a> that women shouldn’t drive, as in Saudi Arabia, or that women should be forced to wear conservative dress. While the Quran asks both men and women to dress modestly, it does not discriminate. </p>
<h2>Politics of the veil</h2>
<p>In today’s political environment, women’s bodies and their sartorial modesty are often the quickest way for governments to express whether the country is secular. </p>
<p>In the 1970s, for example, the Syrian government forbade women from <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/women-and-gender-in-iraq/women-gender-nation-and-the-bath-authoritarian-regime-19682003/310B9F4D75D2AF1C84A9133BCFD2CF95">wearing the veil in public</a> because President Hafez-al-Assad wanted to convey to the outside world that the Baathist regime <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-18582755">was secular and left of the center</a>. The policy continued under President Bashar al-Assad and, in 2010, over a thousand veil-wearing primary school teachers <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/International/islamic-face-covering-veil-banned-syrian-universties/story?id=11204788">were removed from their teaching jobs</a> and given administrative posts. </p>
<p>In Iran, however, following the 1979 revolution, <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/iran-and-the-headscarf-protests/">as observers have pointed out</a>, the hijab came to be the “central symbol,” of Islamist rule. Compulsory hijab wearing was enforced in Iran through law, and any violation was penalized with fines and a two-month prison sentence. </p>
<p>Egypt provides another example. In 2011, the image of a woman whose face was veiled but whose upper garment had come apart exposing her blue bra while she was being dragged by the Egyptian police, captured the media’s attention. The image, which came to be known as the “<a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/12/21/144098384/the-girl-in-the-blue-bra">girl in the blue bra</a>,” soon became a symbol of women’s oppression by the Egyptian military. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A half clothed woman wearing a blue bra and jeans being dragged by policemen, with one about to step on her." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=420&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/488330/original/file-20221005-12-9rxvpu.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=528&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2011 image known as ‘The Girl in the Blue Bra,’ taken during the Egyptian Revolution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2011/12/21/144098384/the-girl-in-the-blue-bra">Stringer/Reuters/Landov</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fact is that women face police brutality regardless of how they dress. The “girl in the blue bra” was attacked by the police because she dared protest the country’s conditions. I believe disrobing her and kicking her in her abdomen was being done on purpose to deter other women from joining the revolution. In 2011, many female protesters were <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/may/31/egypt-online-protest-virginity-tests">put through a virginity test</a> by the Egyptian police when in captivity.</p>
<p>As opposed to a misconception that Muslim women are always forced to act conservatively in their respective countries, the truth is that women are violated for being nonconformist citizens in their respective political regimes. </p>
<p>What is important to note is that these patriarchal practices often are not limited to policing modest dressing for women and penalizing them brutally, but also in forcing them to remove their veil. Following the 2013 coup in Egypt, when Egyptian army chief Gen. Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi overthrew the democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, widespread changes were introduced, <a href="https://www.cairn.info/revue-egypte-monde-arabe-2020-1-page-89.htm">including a crackdown on women</a> who chose to wear the niqab. </p>
<p>Women’s rights and choices over their bodies need to be respected – by Muslim majority nations and the rest of the world.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191475/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Deina Abdelkader does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Imposing restrictions on women has been a way for many countries to demonstrate to the world what policies they want to pursue.Deina Abdelkader, Associate Professor of Political Science, UMass LowellLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1914482022-09-28T15:09:16Z2022-09-28T15:09:16ZIran protests: majority of people reject compulsory hijab and an Islamic regime, surveys find<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/487054/original/file-20220928-19-m977ij.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C9%2C1533%2C1328&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Iranian women have taken to burning hijabs in protest at the death of Mahsa Amini.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Twitter</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A young woman’s death in custody in Iran on September 16 has sparked nationwide protests. Mahsa Amini’s fatal injuries resulted from an arrest and beating by the country’s hijab police, which enforces the mandatory and “correct” way of <a href="https://theconversation.com/iran-protest-at-enforced-hijab-sparks-online-debate-and-feminist-calls-for-action-across-arab-world-191178">wearing the hijab</a>. The protesters have caught the world’s attention by chanting what sounds like a revolutionary slogan: “<em>zan, zendegi, azadi</em>” (woman, life, freedom). Other slogans target the regime: “An Islamic Republic, we don’t want, we don’t want.” </p>
<p>Despite the scale of recurring protests in Iran, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/25/we-watch-protests-in-iran-and-hope-but-false-optimism-may-be-clouding-our-eyes">some people still cast doubt</a> on the idea that these events have mass support in this vast and populous country. So, how extensive is Iranians’ discontent with the mandatory hijab and the regime that imposed it after the 1979 Islamic Revolution?</p>
<p>Between 2019 and 2022, we at <a href="https://gamaan.org/">GAMAAN</a> – Group for Analysing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran – conducted innovative online surveys that ensured anonymity to potentially fearful respondents. The process has been a cat-and-mouse game, with the regime blocking a major survey application in Iran and targeting at least one of our surveys with bots, not to mention the challenge of gathering data from pro-regime respondents.</p>
<p>Our surveys went viral, resulting in raw samples ranging from 20,000 to more than 100,000 respondents. After weighting the data for five demographic variables and one political variable, we could replicate external data such as employment rates, household income distribution levels, and the languages people spoke at home. </p>
<p>Moreover, we found a match between our data and other institutes’ data (gathered through conventional survey methods) for politically non-sensitive questions, while also finding a large discrepancy on politically sensitive topics such as religion (see the tables in the <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/GAMAAN-Iran-Religion-Survey-2020-English.pdf">2020 survey report on religion</a>, the <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/GAMAAN-IR-Survey-English-Report-Final.pdf">2021 report on international relations</a>, and the <a href="https://gamaan.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/GAMAAN-Political-Systems-Survey-2022-English-Final.pdf">2022 report on political systems</a>). The success of these tests indicates, to put it simply, that our survey results show what Iranians of all social layers, including people who support the regime, really think.</p>
<h2>Secular shift</h2>
<p>Our 2020 religion survey confirmed that <a href="https://theconversation.com/irans-secular-shift-new-survey-reveals-huge-changes-in-religious-beliefs-145253">a secular shift</a> is taking place in Iran. While more than <a href="https://twitter.com/gamaanresearch/status/1304049167182987264?s=20&t=UOjRTnLku8SCiVOfCkOHxw">90% of respondents</a> said they had been raised in a believing and/or practising religious family, <a href="https://twitter.com/gamaanresearch/status/1304049161017454593?s=20&t=UOjRTnLku8SCiVOfCkOHxw">around half indicated</a> they had become non-religious in their lifetime. Meanwhile 72% explicitly opposed the mandatory hijab. </p>
<p>When we broke down the data, we found – as we expected – that women, the youngest generation and university-educated people living in cities were the groups most opposed to the mandatory hijab. We also found that the majority of men, people living in rural areas, people over the age of 50, and those without higher education opposed the mandatory hijab. This opposition is, then, indeed nationwide.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486935/original/file-20220927-14-ata3qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486935/original/file-20220927-14-ata3qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486935/original/file-20220927-14-ata3qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486935/original/file-20220927-14-ata3qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=589&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486935/original/file-20220927-14-ata3qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486935/original/file-20220927-14-ata3qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486935/original/file-20220927-14-ata3qc.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=740&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Results from GAMAAN’s 2020 survey on Iranians’ attitudes toward religion.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Conflicts over the mandatory hijab were divided primarily along political and religious lines. Around half of those who said they believed in the practice of wearing the hijab for religious reasons were also explicitly in favour of using state power to enforce it, while only around a quarter explicitly rejected enforcement. </p>
<p>Iranian women who identify as practising Muslims have also expressed anguish over the arbitrary and extreme violence committed by the Islamic Republic against women. While some try to maintain a delicate balance between religious belief and politics, many will continue to abandon religion altogether. The latter do not only criticise the Islamic government but also Islamic ideals of piety in themselves: while 23% of the target population affirmed the religious role the hijab played for them in 2020, 57% said they did not have a religious belief in wearing the headscarf.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486934/original/file-20220927-18-nprbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486934/original/file-20220927-18-nprbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486934/original/file-20220927-18-nprbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486934/original/file-20220927-18-nprbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=630&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486934/original/file-20220927-18-nprbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486934/original/file-20220927-18-nprbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486934/original/file-20220927-18-nprbex.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=792&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Results from GAMAAN’s 2020 survey on Iranians’ attitudes toward religion.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Islamic Republic’s ‘Berlin Wall’</h2>
<p>These secular attitudes help explain why women are publicly burning the hijab and chanting against the very idea of an Islamic regime. For them, the mandatory hijab is <a href="https://twitter.com/alinejadmasih/status/1571886361271062529">the Islamic Republic’s Berlin Wall</a>. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1571886361271062529"}"></div></p>
<p>This is backed up by our 2022 survey on political systems, which showed that about 67% of the target population of literate adults are against a political system governed by religious law. Again, women, the youngest generation, and university-educated people living in cities are the groups most opposed to the idea of an Islamic regime. The highest level of support for an Islamic regime, at 35%, was expressed by people living in rural areas.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486936/original/file-20220927-14-ueltie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486936/original/file-20220927-14-ueltie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486936/original/file-20220927-14-ueltie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486936/original/file-20220927-14-ueltie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=584&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486936/original/file-20220927-14-ueltie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486936/original/file-20220927-14-ueltie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486936/original/file-20220927-14-ueltie.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=734&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Results from GAMAAN’s 2022 survey on Iranians’ attitudes toward political systems.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our longitudinal data on <a href="https://twitter.com/gamaanresearch/status/1510725836466540544?s=20&t=olx60T47STWdq90nE6j5Dw">another question about political orientations</a> indicates that about 63% of the population are proponents of either regime change or some sort of transition from the Islamic Republic. Only 8% supported “reforms” within the framework of the Islamic Republic.</p>
<p>Given these numbers, it shouldn’t surprise commentators that among the most heard chants all over the country are calls for the Islamic Republic to be brought down. The videos that ordinary Iranians are desperately trying to show to the world are thus reflective of the social reality in the country. The facts are that the majority opposes the compulsory hijab and that people of all social layers do not want an Islamic Republic.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/irans-secular-shift-new-survey-reveals-huge-changes-in-religious-beliefs-145253">Iran's secular shift: new survey reveals huge changes in religious beliefs</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Pooyan Tamimi Arab is the secretary of the non-profit research institute GAMAAN.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ammar Maleki is the director of the non-profit research institute GAMAAN.</span></em></p>Data shows that more than half of Iranian women oppose the compulsory wearing of hijabs and that the vast majority oppose an Islamic Republic.Pooyan Tamimi Arab, Assistant Professor of Religious Studies, Utrecht UniversityAmmar Maleki, Assistant Professor, Public Law and Governance, Tilburg UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1912972022-09-26T17:47:58Z2022-09-26T17:47:58ZIran on fire: Once again, women are on the vanguard of transformative change<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486510/original/file-20220926-21-vlyodu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4031%2C3024&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">In this Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, photo obtained by The Associated Press, a police motorcycle burns during a protest over the death of a young woman who had been detained for violating the country's conservative dress code in downtown Tehran, Iran.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/iran-on-fire--once-again--women-are-on-the-vanguard-of-transformative-change" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>On Sept. 16, 2022, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, died in Tehran, Iran, while in police custody. Amini was arrested by the Guidance Patrol, the morality squad of the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran that oversees public implementation of hijab regulations, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/23/opinions/mahsa-amini-iran-protests-hair-women-nemat/index.html">for not wearing a hijab properly</a>.</p>
<p>Soon after the news of her death was broadcast and a photograph emerged on social media of her lying in a Tehran hospital in a coma, people throughout the country became enraged. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1571264656810905606"}"></div></p>
<p>Amini’s death starkly illustrated the systematic violence of police and highlighted particularly the brutality of the regime towards women and minorities. She was Kurdish, <a href="https://dckurd.org/2020/09/15/overlooked-by-the-inter/">a member of one of the most oppressed minority ethnic groups in Iran.</a> </p>
<p>All Iranian women who are routinely humiliated because of their gender can empathize with her. But Kurds and Kurdish women in particular understood the political message of her death at the hands of police and the state’s subsequent violent response to the protests.</p>
<p>The huge wave of protests in Iran following Amini’s death represents a historic moment in Iran. People have taken to the streets shouting slogans against the compulsory hijab and denouncing Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/23/how-iran-erupted-after-mahsa-amini-death-protests">Protests have raged</a> in 31 provinces, including Kurdistan and Tehran as well as cities such as Rasht, Isfahan and Qom, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/23/mahsa-amini-death-could-be-spark-broader-political-action-iran">among Iran’s most conservative communities</a>. Dozens of people <a href="https://bbc.in/3LFqH9N">have been killed by security forces and hundreds more have been arrested.</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A large crowd and cars are seen on a tree-lined city street, smoke billowing in places." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486507/original/file-20220926-27-3rh4qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1998&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486507/original/file-20220926-27-3rh4qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486507/original/file-20220926-27-3rh4qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486507/original/file-20220926-27-3rh4qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486507/original/file-20220926-27-3rh4qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486507/original/file-20220926-27-3rh4qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486507/original/file-20220926-27-3rh4qw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this photo taken by an individual not employed by the Associated Press and obtained by the AP outside Iran, protesters chant slogans during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the morality police, in downtown Tehran, Iran, on Sept. 21, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The Girls of Revolution Street</h2>
<p>Although the current uprising may seem unprecedented, it is in fact part of a deep-rooted and longstanding resistance movement by women in Iran. </p>
<p>In what is widely seen as a punishment to the hundreds of women who participated in the <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/order-from-chaos/2019/01/24/the-iranian-revolution-a-timeline-of-events/">anti-regime protests leading to the Iranian Revolution of 1979</a>, the hijab became compulsory two years later in 1981.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/iranian-women-risk-arrest-daughters-of-the-revolution-92880">Iranian women risk arrest: Daughters of the revolution</a>
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<p>Consequently, publicly removing hijabs <a href="https://www.radiofarda.com/a/29998175.html">became a challenge to the regime in Iran</a>.</p>
<p>Decades later, in 2017, Vida Movahed climbed onto a platform on Enghelab (Revolution) Street in the centre of Tehran, <a href="https://iranhumanrights.org/2019/05/icon-of-irans-hijab-protest-movement-vida-movahedi-released-from-prison/">took off her headscarf and waved it in the air</a> as a sign of opposition to compulsory hijab. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1572001541472817153"}"></div></p>
<p>She was followed by other women and the movement quickly became known <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/the-girls-of-revolution-street-waving-their-veils/">as The Girls of Revolution Street</a> or <em>Dokhtaran-e Khiaban-e Enghelab</em>. </p>
<p>The Girls of Revolution Street represented a fundamental challenge by younger women to Iran’s compulsory veiling laws. Their actions resulted in an <a href="https://en.radiofarda.com/a/iran-protest-against-hijab-veil/29011931.html">increase in the number of women who braved the streets without hijab</a> in defiance of the state.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, when religious hardliner <a href="https://msmagazine.com/2021/06/18/iran-presidential-election-feminist-womens-rights/">Ebrahim Raisi became president in the contested 2020 election</a>, the message was clear: Women would be further oppressed.</p>
<h2>Zan, Zendegi, Azadi: Woman, life, freedom</h2>
<p>This recent uprising is a link in a chain of protests that together have the potential to bring about fundamental change in Iran. </p>
<p>It began with the pro-democracy <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2013/6/12/what-happened-to-the-green-movement-in-iran">Green Movement in 2009</a> followed by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/24/world/middleeast/iran-protests-raisi-khamenei-hijab.html">popular uprisings in 2018 and 2019</a>. The Green Movement was largely peaceful, but the uprisings grew increasingly more confrontational with each wave of repression.</p>
<p>Women have been in the lead in all these protests, posing a real challenge to the regime. They’re the leaders of transformative change, the vanguard of a potential revolution, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/sep/23/mahsa-amini-death-could-be-spark-broader-political-action-iran">challenging the legitimacy of the current government.</a>. </p>
<p>The current protests are focused on two main demands: dignity and freedom. Both have been absent from political life in Iran, and both have a prominent presence in almost all slogans during this uprising, particularly “Woman, Life, Freedom.” </p>
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<img alt="A woman holds a sign that reads Women, Life, Freedom at a protest march." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486525/original/file-20220926-25-diz3bl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/486525/original/file-20220926-25-diz3bl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486525/original/file-20220926-25-diz3bl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486525/original/file-20220926-25-diz3bl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=415&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486525/original/file-20220926-25-diz3bl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486525/original/file-20220926-25-diz3bl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/486525/original/file-20220926-25-diz3bl.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=522&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Members of the Iranian community and their supporters rally in solidarity with protesters in Iran in Ottawa on Sept. 25, 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
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<p>The recent uprising makes it clear that the demand for radical change in Iran today is strong and significant. </p>
<p>With every wave of protest, the desire for freedom gets stronger, the voices get louder and success is within reach. Once again, Iranian women are at the forefront of demanding transformative change. </p>
<p>With the strong support this time of men, political and ethnic minorities and other disenfranchised groups, they may be leading their country closer to a freer and more just society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191297/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vrinda Narain is a Board Member of the research organization, Women Living Under Muslim Laws.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Fatemeh Sadeghi does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Women have long demanded change in Iran. In the aftermath of the death of a woman for a hijab violation, women protesters may be leading their country to a freer and more just society.Vrinda Narain, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law, Centre for Human Rights and Legal Pluralism; Max Bell School of Public Policy, McGill UniversityFatemeh Sadeghi, Research associate, Politics, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1911782022-09-22T16:48:18Z2022-09-22T16:48:18ZIran protest at enforced hijab sparks online debate and feminist calls for action across Arab world<p>Iranian authorities have cracked down on protests which erupted after the death in custody of a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab appropriately. The <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-62986057">death of Mahsa Amini</a> who was reportedly beaten after being arrested for wearing her hijab “improperly” sparked street protests. </p>
<p>Unrest has spread across the country as women burned their headscarves to protest laws that force women to wear the hijab. Seven people are reported to have been killed, and the government has almost completely <a href="https://twitter.com/netblocks/status/1572651793355603972">shut down</a> the internet.</p>
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<p>But in the Arab world – including in Iraq, where I was brought up – the protests have attracted attention and women are <a href="https://twitter.com/i/spaces/1RDGlaVekMMJL/peek">gathering online</a> to <a href="https://twitter.com/EsraaMAA1/status/1572373663164538882?s=20&t=sP2kn4dJ7RZUSqWT6GDr6w">offer solidarity</a> to Iranian women struggling under the country’s harsh theocratic regime.</p>
<p>The enforcement of the hijab and, by extension, guardianship over women’s bodies and minds, are not exclusive to Iran. They manifest in different forms and degrees in many countries. </p>
<p>In Iraq, and unlike the case of Iran, forced wearing of the hijab <a href="https://www.mei.edu/publications/constitutional-and-legal-rights-iraqi-women">is unconstitutional</a>. However, the ambiguity and contradictions of much of the constitution, particularly <a href="https://www.constituteproject.org/constitution/Iraq_2005.pdf?lang=en">Article 2</a> about Islam being the primary source of legislation, has enabled the condition of forced hijab.</p>
<p>Since the 1990s, when Saddam Hussein launched his <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2005/jan/24/iraq.rorymccarthy1">Faith Campaign</a> in response to economic sanctions imposed by the UN security council, pressure on women to wear the hijab has become widespread. Following the US-led invasion of the country, the situation worsened under the rule of Islamist parties, many of whom have close ties to Iran. </p>
<p>Contrary to the claim in 2004 by US president <a href="https://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040312-5.html">George W. Bush</a> that Iraqi people were “now learning the blessings of freedom”, women have been enduring the heavy hand of patriarchy perpetuated by Islamism, militarisation and tribalism, and exacerbated by the influence of Iran.</p>
<p>Going out without a hijab in Baghdad became a daily struggle for me after 2003. I had to put on a headscarf to protect myself wherever I entered a conservative neighbourhood, especially during the years of sectarian violence. </p>
<p>Flashbacks of pro-hijab posters and banners hanging around my university in central Baghdad have always haunted me. The situation has remained unchanged over two decades, with the hijab <a href="http://www.idu.net/modblank.php?mod=news&modfile=print&itemid=25626">reportedly imposed</a> on children and little girls in primary and secondary schools. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.bbc.com/arabic/trending-62985885">new campaign</a> against the enforced wearing of the hijab in Iraqi public schools has surfaced on social media. Natheer Isaa, a leading activist in the <a href="https://twitter.com/Nathereisaa">Women for Women</a> group, which is leading the campaign, told me that hijab is cherished by many conservative or tribal members of society and that backlashes are predictable.</p>
<p>Similar campaigns were suspended due to threats and online attacks. Women posting on social media with the campaign hashtag #notocompulsoryhijab, have attracted <a href="https://twitter.com/am_m_zhs/status/1571931577491275782?s=20&t=Y9fneuMxJufMq7RgcRMsSg">reactionary tweets</a> accusing them of being anti-Islam and anti-society. </p>
<p>Similar accusations are levelled at Iranian women who defy the regime by taking off or burning their headscarves. Iraqi Shia cleric, Ayad Jamal al-Dinn <a href="https://twitter.com/hiba_alnnayib/status/1572696301363666944?s=20&t=n1UixEREr2gur81vBChBgA">lashed out</a> against the protests on his Twitter account, labelling the protesting Iranian women “anti-hijab whores” who are seeking to destroy Islam and culture.</p>
<h2>Cyberfeminists and reactionary men</h2>
<p>In my <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/pais/research/projects/internationalrelationssecurity/cyberfeminisms/">digital ethnographic work</a> on cyberfeminism in Iraq and other countries, I have encountered numerous similar reactions to women who question the hijab or decide to remove it. Women who use their social media accounts to reject the hijab are often met with sexist attacks and threats that attempt to shame and silence them. </p>
<p>Those who openly speak about their decision to take off the hijab receive the harshest reaction. The hijab is linked to women’s honour and chastity, so removing it is seen as defiance.</p>
<p>Women’s struggle with the forced hijab and the backlash against them challenges the prevailing cultural narrative that says wearing the hijab is a free choice. While many women freely decide whether to wear it or not, others are obliged to wear it. </p>
<p>So academics need to revisit the discourse around the hijab and the conditions perpetuating the mandatory wearing of it. In doing so it is important to move away from the false dichotomies of culture versus religion, or the local versus the western, which obscure rather than illuminate the root causes of forced hijab.</p>
<p>In her academic <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0141778919849525">research</a> on gender-based violence in the context of the Middle East, feminist academic Nadje al-Ali emphasises the need to break away from these binaries and recognise the various complex power dynamics involved – both locally and internationally. </p>
<p>The issue of forcing women to wear the hijab in conservative societies should be at the heart of any discussion about women’s broader fight for freedom and social justice. </p>
<p>Iranian women’s rage against compulsory hijab wearing, despite the security crackdown, is part of a wider women’s struggle against autocratic conservative regimes and societies that deny them agency. The collective outrage in Iran and Iraq invites us to challenge the compulsory hijab and those imposing it on women or perpetuating the conditions enabling it.</p>
<p>As one Iraqi female activist told me: “For many of us, hijab is like the gates of a jail, and we are the invisible prisoners.” It is important for the international media and activists to bring their struggle to light, without subscribing to the narrative that Muslim women need saving by the international community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Balsam Mustafa receives funding from The Leverhulme Trust (Grant no. ECF-2021-599). </span></em></p>Feminist campaigners are using the internet to challenge the conservative establishment and empower Arab women.Balsam Mustafa, Leverhulme Early Career Research Fellow, Department of Politics and International Studies, University of WarwickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1882612022-08-23T15:26:00Z2022-08-23T15:26:00ZHow Québec’s Bill 21 could be vanquished by a rarely used Charter provision<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480193/original/file-20220821-38135-xdwiq.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C4739%2C2920&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Lapel pins are seen as part of a campaign in opposition to Québec's Bill 21 during a news conference in Montréal in September 2019.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/how-quebec-s-bill-21-could-be-vanquished-by-a-rarely-used-charter-provision" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>This November, the Québec Court of Appeal will hear an appeal of <a href="https://www.canlii.org/fr/qc/qccs/doc/2021/2021qccs1466/2021qccs1466.html?resultIndex=3"><em>Hak v. Attorney General of Québec</em></a> on the constitutionality of Bill 21, which prohibits public service workers from wearing religious symbols.</p>
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<em>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/in-quebec-christian-liberalism-becomes-the-religious-authority-114548">In Québec, Christian liberalism becomes the religious authority</a>
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</em>
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<p>The trial decision upheld the law in most respects, except for its impact on the management of the province’s <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-sadly-bill-21-lives-on-but-theres-an-important-exemption">minority-language school boards.</a></p>
<p>Despite the harsh effects of the law — primarily on Muslim women like Grade 3 teacher <a href="https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/chelsea-teacher-reassigned-due-to-her-hijab-overwhelmed-by-public-support">Fatemeh Anvari</a>, who was removed from a Québec classroom for wearing a hijab — you might think the appeal is bound to fail.</p>
<p>That’s because the Québec National Assembly attempted to shield Bill 21 from Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms by invoking Sec. 33 of the Charter, known as the “notwithstanding clause.” </p>
<p>Sec. 33 allows laws to operate “notwithstanding” certain rights and freedoms contained in the Charter, like the general equality right of Sec. 15 and the freedom of religion right of Sec. 2 </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/first-ontario-now-quebec-the-notwithstanding-threat-104379">First Ontario, now Quebec: The notwithstanding threat</a>
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<h2>Women’s Charter advocacy</h2>
<p>But what the Québec government appears to have overlooked is the existence of Sec. 28 of the Charter, which states:</p>
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<p>“Notwithstanding anything in this Charter, the rights and freedoms referred to in it are guaranteed equally to male and female persons.” </p>
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<p>The provision is unique in that it was <a href="https://riseupfeministarchive.ca/announcement/section-28-adopted-into-draft-of-the-canadian-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms/">drafted by women advocates</a> — not government lawyers — and was included in the Charter virtually unchanged from what they initially proposed. Its purpose was to guarantee that other provisions of the Charter worked to advance, not detract from, the genuine equality of all women in Canada. </p>
<p>When Sec. 33 came on the scene in November 1981, these same women advocates fought <a href="http://www.constitute.ca/the-film/">an epic battle</a> to ensure Sec. 28 was not subject to it, and that the notwithstanding clause could never be used by legislatures to erode women’s rights.</p>
<p>It was apparent <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/news/quebec/quebec-minister-for-women-stands-by-belief-that-hijabs-are-oppressive">from the beginning</a> that Bill 21 was primarily aimed at Muslim women wearing religious head coverings (like the niqab, exposing the wearer’s eyes and the hijab, exposing the wearer’s face). </p>
<p>And in fact, the trial judge in <em>Hak v. Attorney General of Québec</em> found that most — if not all — of those affected by Bill 21 are Muslim women who wear the hijab, a group that is particularly vulnerable. He also found that it was “indisputable” that Bill 21 violated a number of provisions in the Charter. </p>
<p>The most obvious is freedom of religion. Bill 21’s invocation of the notwithstanding clause, therefore, negatively impacts the enjoyment of freedom of religion by this particular group of women and violates Sec. 28.</p>
<p>Furthermore, because Bill 21’s gendered, disproportionate effects disadvantage Muslim women in a variety of ways, it results in diminished access to sexual equality, an additional violation of Sec. 28. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A protester waves a sign that reads Her Head, Her Choice" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=408&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480191/original/file-20220821-38135-b6flcs.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">People rally against Bill 21 in Chelsea, Que., in December 2021 after a teacher was removed from her position because she wears a hijab.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang</span></span>
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<h2>Québec Muslim women feel less safe</h2>
<p>While Bill 21’s preamble states that “the Québec nation attaches importance to the equality of women and men,” the reality is much different. </p>
<p><a href="https://acs-metropolis.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Report_Survey-Law-21_ACS.pdf">A recent report</a> by the Association for Canadian Studies and Léger Marketing indicates that an overwhelming majority of Muslim women have felt less safe since the law’s adoption and report they’ve been subjected to hate crimes. </p>
<p>In one harrowing account, <a href="https://seculartimes.com/bill-21-made-religious-minorities-in-quebec-feel-less-safe-survey/">a Muslim woman reported that a man in a pickup truck attempted</a> to run her and her three-year-old daughter down as they walked home from daycare. Two-thirds of Muslim women say they’ve experienced a decline in their quality of life and mental health.</p>
<p>As I’ve argued in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4171256">a recent paper</a>, Sec. 28 essentially blocks the notwithstanding clause when it would permit a law to operate, despite disproportionately affecting the rights of women.</p>
<p>Bill 21’s religious symbol ban denies Muslim women the right to religious freedom and sexual equality, contrary to Sec. 28. </p>
<p>Therefore, notwithstanding the notwithstanding clause, a court could justifiably rule that Bill 21 violates the Charter and that the provisions of the law resulting in inequality for women are unconstitutional.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Three women wearing hijabs are seen walking along a street. One carries a knapsack on her back." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2995%2C2061&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=414&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/480190/original/file-20220821-48297-za6ht2.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Women wear hijabs as they walk in the Old Port in Montréal in August 2022. As the Québec Court of Appeal prepares to hear in November an appeal of a Bill 21 ruling, a new survey shows religious minorities in Québec are feeling less safe, less accepted and less hopeful since the province passed the law.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes</span></span>
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<h2>‘Unknown quantity’</h2>
<p>Sec. 28 is nearly an unknown quantity in law. There are many reasons for this. </p>
<p>One is because the entrenchment of the Charter was met initially with an onslaught of <a href="https://2ogewo36a26v4fawr73g9ah2-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/cacsw-cdncharter-report-1989-OCR-4.pdf">claims from men</a> seeking to roll back some of the modest protections women had under the law. Some of these claims succeeded via judicial misinterpretation of Sec. 28. As a result, other judges thought it best to ignore or marginalize the provision.</p>
<p>For instance, <a href="https://www.leaf.ca/case_summary/shewchuk-v-ricard-1986-2/">in <em>Shewchuck v Ricard</em> in 1986</a>, the British Columbia Court of Appeal rebuffed a Sec. 28 challenge to legislation that provided legal assistance for single mothers seeking child support and compelled deadbeat dads to come to court. </p>
<p>The court expressed concern that Sec. 28 would undermine the judges’ ability to “critically examine” sex-based distinctions for discrimination.</p>
<p>But that time has passed. Bad precedents from almost 40 years ago should not be an impediment to the Québec Court of Appeal’s principled use of Sec. 28 today.</p>
<p>Bill 21 has had a poisonous impact on Québec citizens, Canadians’ willingness to embrace diversity and women’s equality. Thankfully, women advocates of 1981 foresaw the need for the antidote of Sec. 28 to overcome negative uses of the Charter, including Sec. 33. </p>
<p>Let’s hope that the Québec Court of Appeal has the acumen to use it as prescribed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188261/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerri Anne Froc receives funding from Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is affiliated with the National Association of Women and the Law.</span></em></p>The Québec government thought it would Charter-proof its religious symbol law when it invoked the nothwithstanding clause. It was wrong.Kerri Anne Froc, Associate Law Professor, University of New BrunswickLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1885952022-08-12T05:17:25Z2022-08-12T05:17:25ZHow Indonesian Islamic politics shape mandatory hijab rules and uniform policies in schools<p>Late last month, a high school teacher in the Indonesian province of Yogyakarta <a href="https://www.suara.com/news/2022/08/01/153129/5-fakta-siswi-sma-negeri-di-bantul-alami-depresi-diduga-usai-dipaksa-pakai-jilbab-di-sekolah">reportedly forced a female Muslim student</a> to wear the hijab – veils worn by Muslim women – causing her to become <a href="https://yogyakarta.kompas.com/read/2022/07/30/064900078/siswi-depresi-karena-diduga-dipaksa-pakai-hijab-ombudsman-di-yogyakarta?page=all">anxious and depressed</a>.</p>
<p>As a response, the province’s government <a href="https://kumparan.com/pandangan-jogja/sultan-hb-x-nonaktifkan-kepala-sekolah-dan-3-guru-terkait-pemaksaan-jilbab-1yb1axaDUmE">recently suspended</a> the school’s principal and three teachers involved in the incident.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.hrw.org/id/report/2021/03/18/378167">A 2021 report</a> from Human Rights Watch shows that since 1990, there have been a growing number of <a href="https://simpuh.kemenag.go.id/regulasi/permendikbud_45_14.pdf">national</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/bagaimana-perda-keagamaan-memberi-ruang-bagi-sekolah-untuk-paksakan-pemakaian-jilbab-dan-mengikis-hak-pelajar-minoritas-154080">regional</a> laws regulating uniforms for Muslim girls and women in Indonesia’s education system. </p>
<p>The country’s National Commission on Violence Against Women (<em>Komnas Perempuan</em>) has also <a href="https://komnasperempuan.go.id/uploadedFiles/444.1613785203.pdf">criticised these clothing standards</a>, saying they might propagate gender bias and misogyny.</p>
<p>These Islamic clothing standards, however, are often seen as <a href="https://magdalene.co/story/pakaian-panjang-dan-keselamatan-perempuan">symbols of morality and social piety</a>.</p>
<p>Islamic politics play a huge role in shaping hijab and uniform regulations in Indonesian schools, and also the social contexts that affect how these policies are implemented in the education sector.</p>
<h2>The reality of Muslim attire in schools</h2>
<p>To understand how Indonesia’s political climate affects hijab rules in schools, one can start by looking at the country’s <a href="https://simpuh.kemenag.go.id/regulasi/permendikbud_45_14.pdf">2014 ministerial regulation</a> that govern school uniforms nationwide.</p>
<p>One section of the regulation states:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Muslim attires for female students are worn according to their personal beliefs and should comply with the predetermined type, model, and colour, to be used in academic activities.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A quick glance at the above phrasing shows that there seems to be no problem – female Muslim students are not compelled to wear “Muslim attire”.</p>
<p>Not only that, from a political perspective, the ministerial regulation was born from the government’s attempt to <a href="https://www.republika.co.id/berita/n9xijx/duh-permendikbud-jilbab-belum-efektif-1">prevent discrimination</a> against female Muslim students in regions such as Bali, where they are a minority.</p>
<p>The then education minister, Muhammad Nuh, said the law was designed to <a href="https://lldikti12.ristekdikti.go.id/2014/06/11/permendikbud-nomor-45-tahun-2014-tentang-pakaian-seragam-sekolah.html">protect the religious expression</a> of female Muslim students. It was intended to give them space to express their faith through the choice <a href="https://www.satuharapan.com/read-detail/read/kemdikbud-siswa-sekolah-harus-sesuaikan-seragam-baru">to wear, or to not wear</a>, hijabs and other forms of Islamic attire.</p>
<p>However, according to reports from the National Commission on Violence Against Women and Human Rights Watch, these regulations are often interpreted differently by schools. Education institutions often see it as a lawful basis to “encourage” the use of hijabs among female Muslim students who have yet to wear them.</p>
<p>The ministerial regulation, for instance, says that school uniforms should “strengthen national identity”, and cultivate discipline and state obedience among students.</p>
<p>This spirit is what gives room for schools to establish policies and rules that conform with regional contexts – and in turn the dominant political narrative.</p>
<p>As regions in Indonesia increasingly <a href="https://theconversation.com/menguatnya-konservatisme-memundurkan-reformasi-kebijakan-demi-kesetaraan-perempuan-di-indonesia-144505">see Islamic attire</a> as <a href="https://theconversation.com/tidak-hanya-berdampak-pada-praktik-politik-menguatnya-konservatisme-juga-bisa-menentukan-arah-republik-144424">symbols of morality</a>, many schools then push female students to wear hijabs. We saw this in <a href="https://www.suara.com/news/2022/08/01/153129/5-fakta-siswi-sma-negeri-di-bantul-alami-depresi-diduga-usai-dipaksa-pakai-jilbab-di-sekolah">the recent case in Yogyakarta</a>, and even targeted non-Muslim students such as in <a href="https://theconversation.com/bagaimana-perda-keagamaan-memberi-ruang-bagi-sekolah-untuk-paksakan-pemakaian-jilbab-dan-mengikis-hak-pelajar-minoritas-154080">the 2021 incident in West Sumatra</a>.</p>
<p>How did Indonesia arrive at this point?</p>
<h2>Islamic politics in the education sector</h2>
<p>The use of hijabs as a representation of Islamic identity in the education sector is tightly related to the revival of Islamic politics in the global, national, and local stage.</p>
<p>From <a href="https://opac.perpusnas.go.id/DetailOpac.aspx?id=466570">1965 to 1985</a>, the strained relation between the Indonesian New Order government and numerous Muslim groups, not to mention the state’s hostile attitude toward Islamic politics, resulted in <a href="https://tamaddunislam.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/sk-052-1982.pdf">the ban of hijabs in all public schools</a>. </p>
<p>Students who wore hijabs were met with suspicion, intimidated by teachers and even the military, and were often threatened with expulsion.</p>
<p>The government’s hostility was in turn met with resistance – primarily from the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), the Indonesian Islamic Propagation Council (DII), and the Islamic social organisation Muhammadiyah.</p>
<p>This resistance intensified after the <a href="https://www.dw.com/id/mengapa-otoritas-iran-paksa-perempuan-berkerudung/a-56017453">1979 Iranian Revolution</a>. Iran’s decision to make the hijab compulsory for all women in the country <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/ae.1996.23.4.02a00010">inspired</a> many female Indonesian Muslims.</p>
<p>At the time, the hijab was seen as a symbol of rebellion against the West, a social instrument to combat “moral degradation”, and a form of opposition against the domination of Western politics, economy, and culture. This symbol of being part of the global Muslim “<a href="https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095958187">imagined community</a>” then became the foundation of the “hijabi movement” in Indonesia.</p>
<p>This movement then spread even further in Indonesian education, particularly universities, <a href="https://opac.fah.uinjkt.ac.id/index.php?p=show_detail&id=10260">throughout the 1980s</a>. This was thanks to the advocacy of a number of Islamic organisations in many campuses across Indonesia.</p>
<p>The presence of <a href="https://ugmpress.ugm.ac.id/id/product/budaya/islamisme-ala-kaum-muda-kampus-dinamika-aktivisme-mahasiswa-islam-di-universitas-gadjah-mada-dan-universitas-indonesia-di-era-pasca-soeharto">the Muslim Brotherhood (<em>Ikhwanul Muslimin</em>) in Indonesia</a>, for instance, gave rise to political activism in notable campuses such as Universitas Gadjah Mada (UGM) in Yogyakarta; Universitas Brawijaya in Malang, East Java; Universitas Indonesia in Jakarta, and the Bogor Agricultural Institute (IPB) in West Java. </p>
<p>The Indonesian Muslim Students (PII) also developed advocacy strategies targeted at Muslim students in numerous mosques and cities, including the Mujahidin Mosque in Bandung and the Syuhada Mosque in Yogyakarta.</p>
<p>Then, from 1991 to 1998, the tension between the New Order government and Muslim groups started to thaw. These massive Islamic movements succeeded in repairing political relations with the government and nationalist-secular factions.</p>
<p>It resulted in the Ministry of Education passing <a href="https://historia.id/kultur/articles/jilbab-terlarang-di-era-orde-baru-6k4Xn/page/5">a 1991 decree</a> that finally allowed hijabs and Muslim attire in pubic schools. Not only that, the movements also strengthened Islamic values within Indonesian society.</p>
<p>The use of hijabs among students in the 1990s became further widespread as the presence of Islamic clubs or organisations, known as <em>rohis</em>, continued to grow within schools. Wearing the hijab in this period was seen as a symbol of Muslim piety, rebirth (<em>hijrah</em>), and identity.</p>
<p>As the Reformation Era ushered in 1998, democratisation in Indonesia gave even more room for the rise of Islamic politics and religious expression in the public sphere.</p>
<p>The significance of hijabs in post-1998 Indonesia then experienced a shift. Religious anthropologist Nancy Smith-Hefner states that the hijab has grown <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231178994_Muslim_Women_and_the_Veil_in_Post-Soeharto_Java">not only to symbolise individual interpretations of Islam</a>, but also as a <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270990579_Sexual_Politics_in_Indonesia_By_Saskia_Wieringa_Basingstoke_Hants_Palgrave_Macmillan_for_the_Institute_of_Social_Studies_The_Hague_2002_xviii_390_pp_7800_cloth">lifestyle, trend, and a form of social control</a> when interacting with the opposite gender.</p>
<h2>A nation fractured</h2>
<p>Two decades after the 1998 Reformation, the use of hijabs in schools and campuses is still entrenched in political debate. This reflects in the tension between conservative-fundamentalist Islamic groups, and nationalist-pluralist and mainstream Islamic groups such as Nahdlatul Ulama (NU).</p>
<p>The battle for how the hijab should be regulated in schools shows how social cohesion within Indonesian society continue to erode – particularly as a consequence of sharpening political polarisation after the emergence of democracy and free speech at the end of the 20th century.</p>
<p>The government, civil society, schools, students, parents, and Muslim groups in Indonesia must start to cultivate dialog to bridge these differences.</p>
<p>It is vital for Indonesia’s education sector to ensure access and opportunity for various groups within society to express their choices and interests – including students and the faculty’s decision to wear, or to not wear, the hijab.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/188595/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sari Oktafiana receives funding from Research Foundation Flanders, VLIR-UOS.</span></em></p>Under Indonesian rules designed to protect religious freedom, female Muslim students are not compelled to wear “Muslim attire”. But those regulations are often interpreted differently by schools.Sari Oktafiana, PhD Researcher, KU LeuvenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.