Iran reviews hardline approach to hijab in bid to stop protests
Iran is reviewing a decades-old law that requires women to wear a hijab, as authorities struggle to quell protests over the dress code that have been ongoing for more than two months.
President Ebrahim Raisi said that Iran’s republican and Islamic foundations were constitutionally entrenched, but that there were “methods of implementing the constitution that can be flexible”.
An Iranian girl holds up her country’s flag in Sadeghieh Square. in Tehran.Credit:AP
It came a day after the country’s attorney general said the parliament and the judiciary were reviewing legislation requiring a head covering.
“Both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the issue)” and results will be presented “in a week or two”, said Mohammad Jafar Montazeri
The headscarf became obligatory for all women in Iran in April 1983, four years after the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy.
It remains a highly sensitive issue in a country where conservatives insist it should be compulsory, while reformists want to leave it up to individual choice.
The hijab has been the subject of daily protests since the death of Mahsa Amini in custody in September after she was reportedly arrested for wearing her headscarf incorrectly.
Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died in detention in Iran, setting off the biggest protests in Iran since 1979.Credit:Twitter
According to human rights groups, more than 460 people, including 50 children, have been killed by security forces.
Anti-regime protests across Iran continued as security forces reportedly demolished the home of the brother of Elnaz Rekabi, the country’s climbing champion who controversially competed without her hijab during a recent event in South Korea.
Footage posted online and shared by Davood Rekabi – Elnaz’s brother – showed a house reduced to rubble, with furniture and a box of medals piled up on the ground.
An unidentified man off camera can be heard saying: “Where is the justice? This is the result of living in a country where its champion wins so many medals [but] her brother is hit with pepper spray and his modest working-class home demolished.”
Members of Iran’s cultural and security force organised the demolition in the western city of Zanjanrood, a source close to the Rekabi family said.
Davood Rekabi has also reportedly been fined for allegedly building his home without a construction licence.
Elnaz Rekabi received a hero’s welcome on her return to Tehran in October but later appeared on state TV saying her scarf “had slipped off accidentally during the competition”. She has not been seen in public since and is believed to be under house arrest.
The Telegraph, London
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