In a further attempt to rein in the increasing number of women defying Iran’s compulsory dress code, authorities are installing cameras in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalise unveiled women.
In a further attempt to rein in the increasing number of women defying Iran’s compulsory dress code, authorities are installing cameras in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalise unveiled women.
After they have been identified, violators will receive “warning text messages as to the consequences”, police said in a statement.
The move is aimed at “preventing resistance against the hijab law,” said the statement, carried by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency and other state media, adding that such resistance tarnishes Iran’s spiritual image and spreads insecurity.
But although risking arrest for defying the obligatory dress code, women are still widely seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media.
Saturday’s police statement on the hijab law called on owners of businesses to “seriously monitor the observance of societal norms with their diligent inspections”.
Hardliners confront unveiled women
Under Iran’s Islamic sharia law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest.
Describing the veil as “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” an Interior Ministry statement on March 30 said there would be no retreat on the issue.
It urged citizens to confront unveiled women. Such directives in past decades have emboldened hardliners to attack women. Last week a viral video showed a man throwing yoghurt at two unveiled women in a shop.
Source: Reuters