Many Iranian women resist the imposition of the veil two years after the murder of Amini

Many Iranian women are refusing to cover their hair with a veil in defiance of the Islamic Republic despite a strong crackdown, two years after the brutal murder of Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly.

Amini's death in police custody on 16 September 2022 sparked protests with a marked feminist tone, with young Iranians calling for the end of the Islamic Republic, chanting “Women, life, freedom”.

After the protests were crushed by a crackdown that left 500 dead and 22.000 arrested, many Iranian women continue the fight, wearing their hair loose on the streets of the country and rejecting the veil, a non-negotiable symbol of the republic founded by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1979.

On the streets of Tehran, but also in cafés and shops, many young women are seen with their heads uncovered and many do not even wear a veil on their shoulders, a seemingly trivial gesture but full of meaning.

“I haven’t worn the veil since the protests. Amini’s death has turned not wearing the veil into a gesture of resistance and civil disobedience,” says Leila, an employee at a home appliance store in Tehran.

Amini's death was "the straw that broke the camel's back" for many Iranians "fed up with the situation in the country" and who yearn for a "secular democracy with freedoms," she says.

Even after the return of the feared Morality Police to the streets of the capital in mid-April and the arrest of women who do not cover themselves, Leila continues to not wear a hijab despite warnings from her friends.

One of those arrested for not covering her hair was Samira, a 27-year-old tour guide, who was forced into a van by the morality officers, women covered in the chador, a black garment that covers the entire body except the face.

During the arrest, her boyfriend struggled with the male police officers accompanying the women in chadors and ended up on the ground with scratches.

“This system is an enemy of women,” says Samira, who was released from a police station after signing a document agreeing to cover her hair.

When she was interviewed on a central street in the capital, she was not wearing the veil and says that she only wears it in areas where she knows there are morality patrols, despite the arrest, a tactic that many women resort to.

Street arrests by the morality police have boosted sales of the veil, according to several vendors, a sector that has been in decline since Amini's death.

“War on Women” 

This was the latest government tactic to reinstate Islamic dress. Previously, authorities had resorted to, and continue to resort to, confiscating vehicles, flogging and even punishing people by having to clean up corpses.

All of this has been dubbed the “war on women” by Nobel Peace Prize winner Narges Mohammadi, who continues her feminist activism from Evin Prison where she is incarcerated.

A “war” that continues every day. In recent weeks, the authorities have denounced actress Sahar Dolatshahi for “performing acts contrary to Islamic norms” by dancing in a scene from a series, and film director Rakhshan Bani-Etemad and actress Baran Kosari for attending a film presentation without covering their hair.

In a more serious case, activists have reported that a 31-year-old woman was left paralysed after being shot in the back by security forces in July while driving without a veil, a claim denied by authorities.

Despite the repression, the complaints, the arrests, the confiscations of vehicles and other punishments, Leila remains optimistic.

“The resistance continues on the part of a large part of women and I believe that we will finally win against the authorities,” she says. EFE and Aurora