Iran police shot a woman while trying to seize her car over hijab law violation, activists say
NBCAUG 2024
Every day, Iranian women demonstrate extraordinary courage by simply choosing how to dress, knowing they risk arrest, violence, or worse. Two years after Jina Mahsa Amini's death sparked the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, women continue to resist the mandatory hijab law despite intensified pressure and a harsh new "hijab and chastity" bill. They face this oppression not just from the government, but also through fines imposed on businesses that serve them and the impounding of vehicles that transport them. Yet they persist, reclaiming their bodily autonomy in cities and rural areas alike, showing that Iranian society has evolved far beyond its restrictive laws.
The Western narrative on Iran's dress code controversies exposes a familiar hypocrisy: it paints Iranian women as oppressed by hijab laws while failing to address its own restrictive policies. Western media often presents the hijab as the sole symbol of Iranian women's struggle, reducing their calls for autonomy to an “anti-Islam” stance. Yet, in France, Muslim women are banned from wearing hijabs, a stark parallel of the same control Western media condemns abroad. True solidarity would mean respecting women’s right to choose — whether veiled or unveiled — and acknowledging the complex socio-political roots beyond the hijab.
There is a 50% chance that Iran will cease to be an Islamic Republic by May 2041, according to the Metaculus prediction community.