New Delhi/Tehran: Authorities in Iran have been making clear their determination to enforce compulsory hijab on women, according to a media report. This comes after months of protests demanding an end to the restriction, BBC reported.
A hardline Iranian MP has issued an ultimatum to the judiciary to come up with measures to put a stop to women flouting the rules on headscarves within the next 48 hours, the report said.
In latest report from ground, dozens of shops and malls in which Iranian women continue to flout the regime’s mandatory hijab rules have been closed down across Iran with dozens more women arrested.
As the regime fights a losing battle against the wave of women bravely participating in a nationwide hijab rebellion, the tide against oppression continues.
In Kashan, Esfahan (Isfahan) province, Karim Ahmadi, an IRGC commander, said more than 40 shops have been shut down for their customers not complying with Islamic dress code.
Meanwhile, upon the order of the city prosecutor, Kashan Mall, the largest commercial and tourism center of the city has also been sealed for mass breaking of the compulsory hijab rule.
A video from Kermanshah in the west shows the staff of Taq-e Bostan historical complex preventing women without the headscarf from visiting the ancient monument.
In the southern Khuzestan province, Dezful’s prosecutor, Mehdi Amadeh said “one of the city’s tourist sites has been sealed since Friday due to non-compliance with moral standards”.
As women across Iran defiantly dance in public as protest against female oppression, Amadeh also said, “While not observing the hijab, some women also danced without the veil.”
On Thursday, the Dezful prosecutor announced several people have been arrested on charges of embarking on a tour in the Dez Lake area and “norm breaking” during the event. Government authorities are not backing down on this issue. On Saturday, President Ebrahim Raisi declared the compulsory hijab “obligatory” adding that “it is a religious necessity”.
However, the mass protests that erupted across Iran in September last year have largely been quelled for now by brute force.
But some women continue to defy the rules on wearing a mandatory headscarf in public.
A video posted this week shows a man throwing a tub of yogurt in the face of an unveiled woman. His action was met with outrage by male and female bystanders, BBC reported.
Protests swept across the Islamic Republic following the death in September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman detained by morality police in Tehran for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”.
The interior ministry announced this week that there would be no retreat or tolerance on the issue. The statement said that the hijab remained an essential element of Islamic law and as such would remain one of the key principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran, BBC reported.
The unyielding rhetoric echoed that of the head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, who had recently said that women who do not wear the head covering would be prosecuted without mercy.
Now, a hardline MP has said that legislative measures must be taken to enforce what he called the “divine decree” of the hijab, BBC reported.
Hossein Ali Haji Deligani said that if the judiciary does not not provide such action within the next 48 hours, MPs would put in motion a bill to fill the legal vacuum.
He said it would be in line with a report by the parliamentary cultural commission on “chastity and the hijab”, BBC reported.
-Dr. M Shahid Siddiqui (PhD), Follow via Twitter @shahidsiddiqui
