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 Mahsa Amini's death sparked the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, and women continue to resist the mandatory hijab law. Despite intensified pressure and harsh new legislation, they persist, reclaiming their bodily autonomy in cities and rural areas alike, showing that Iranian society has evolved far beyond its restrictive laws.
The West paints Iranian women as oppressed by hijab laws while failing to address its own flawed perspectives. It 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 to the same domineering approach Western media condemns abroad. True solidarity would mean acknowledging the complex socio-political and cultural roots beyond the hijab.
There's a 50% chance that Iran will cease to be an Islamic Republic by August 2041, according to the Metaculus prediction community.