Iranian Women Disregard The Hijab Law Despite Dangers

Women in Iran are resisting renewed efforts by the government to use technology to impose the mandatory dress code of wearing hijab, which has been the subject of ongoing protests around the nation.

The beginning of a “smart” campaign using surveillance cameras to detect women who disobey the threat of fines or imprisonment by failing to cover their hair or wear loose-fitting apparel in public was announced by national police head Ahmad Reza Radan in April.

He issued warnings that people who violated the hijab rule a second time would face legal action, that cars transporting female passengers with uncovered hair would be impounded, and that companies that failed to enforce the law would be forced to close.

However, his decision sparked mocking replies on social media, with women around the nation tweeting images and videos of themselves in public places without the hijab.

People claim to have been getting notifications about dress code violations inside their cars from traffic control cameras for several years.

However, this is the first instance in which the government has threatened to punish or seize people’s cars.

“I received an SMS over a month ago that stated my license plate number after a road trip I took with my female friends to the city of Damghan. We were mostly not wearing the hijab in our cars,” one woman told the BBC.

Similar texts warning them that their automobiles will be impounded if they reappear in public without the hijab have been reported from other persons. Links to a website where they can contest the alleged offense are also included in the communications.

A message with his car’s license plate and the spot he had driven on a specific day, according to one man, was given to him, “except I was not with a woman at that time and place.”

“I was by myself. Their cameras aren’t very precise, he continued.

The man, who wished to remain unnamed, shared a photograph with the BBC displaying his long hair.

Men have also reported that following April’s announcement they received an indiscriminate message from the police saying: “Dear citizen, it is necessary to respect and comply with the law of the hijab.”

They poked fun at the move, with one man writing on Instagram: “Is this how smart your technology is?”

Some lawyers have argued that this new move by the police and the judiciary is illegal.

“The confiscation of cars because of a lack of hijab has no legal basis in the constitution and is a crime,” Mohsen Borhani wrote on Twitter. The judiciary responded by reiterating that “taking off the hijab in public is a crime”.

Meanwhile, women have said they are willing to continue the fight against the mandatory hijab, despite the increased risk of being punished.

“Too many young lives have been lost in the past few months for us to go back to how things were before,” said one young woman in the city of Semnan.

She was referring to the brutal suppression of the protests that erupted following the death in custody of Mahsa Amini last September. The 22-year-old had been detained by morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab “improperly”.

Since then, many women have burned their headscarves or waved them in the air during demonstrations to chants of “Woman, Life, Freedom”.

Almost nine months on, they are still fighting to abolish the system that controls their personal and public lives.