Dear MEL Topic Readers,
Iranian women defy efforts by hardliners to enforce wearing of hijab
The 1979 Iranian Revolution overthrew the pro-Western monarchy and
established an Islamic Republic led by cleric Khomeini. Immediately, the authorities
started urging women to wear the hijab, a headscarf many Muslim women wear as a
sign of faith, privacy, and modesty. Iran’s penal code criminalizes women in
public without a hijab, but it does not define what it means clearly and has not been
enforced consistently. Prayer leaders and hardliners claim the hijab is
essential for cultural identity and have been pressing the authorities to
enforce the code more strictly to remove what they call “public nudity.”
However, Iran now has other priorities to deal with, including water scarcity, economic
sanctions, and war against the USA and Israel. Indeed, Iran desperately needs
unity among men and women, the old and the young. So, when women without hijab take
part in government-supportive gatherings, the authorities have very little to
say or do, at least for now. Is the US giving Iranian women the chance to show
themselves more openly?
Read the article and learn about the change in Iran’s headscarf
requirement.
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