In Iran, putting the hijab at the centre for change

On Friday, June 28, Iranians went to the polls to elect a new president after President Ebrahim Raisi was killed in a helicopter crash in May. The results will be announced on Sunday, June 30. In the campaigns leading up to the elections, the mandatory hijab was a main topic.

Six candidates ran for office, and two dropped out at the last hour, which is common. Four of the remaining candidates are hardliners, except the outlier Masoud Pezeshkian, a reformist who favours more social openness and engagement with the West. He is the most forceful voice against mandatory hijab and the morality police and the only candidate to openly admit that he’s opposed to telling anyone how to dress.

The Iranian economy has struggled in recent years, partly a result of the sanctions the United States imposed after the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal and the economic mismanagement by the country’s clerical and military rulers. Iranians are also annoyed with restrictions on their personal lives, particularly the requirement that women wear the hijab, which led to mass protests in 2022.

Women represent about half of Iran’s 61 million eligible voters. Although voter apathy is high among critics of the government, opposition to the hijab law and the morality police has exceeded gender, religious, and class lines, and now some of the loudest complaints are from religious people and conservatives, the backbone of the government’s constituents. So, why now?

Iran’s penal code which went into effect after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and criminalised the appearance of women in public spaces without a “sharia hijab”. The offense was punishable by a fine, or imprisonment between 10 days to two months.

It's not certain what will happen to the law under the new administration. Different administrations have adopted looser or stricter approaches to hijab. Under Ebrahim Raisi, the president who died in the plane crash, Iran’s parliament has been working on legislation that would impose punitive damages on women who disobey the rules, including denying them social services, imposing travel bans, and permitting the judiciary to withdraw funds from their bank accounts.

Yet, some Iranian women’s rights activists and analysts say forcing the issue to the table during elections is in itself an accomplishment. It shows that the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement of civil disobedience which began in 2022 is too big to ignore.

The protests, over the years in some ways moved from groups to individuals. Girls and women are walking on the streets, eating in restaurants, going to work, and riding public transportation wearing dresses, crop tops, and skirts, and leaving their hair uncovered. This is risky, as the morality police lurk on street corners to arrest women defying the rules. According to a report by Amnesty International, in recent months, facial recognition software, both in traffic surveillance cameras and drones, has been used to identify hijab law offenders, who then are summoned to appear in court by phone texts.

In the run-up to these elections, during a live televised debate on social issues, women and the hijab dominated a four-hour event. The issue has also surfaced in campaign videos that are targeting female voters and rallies in cities around the country.

In Isfahan, at a rally for Masoud Pezeshkian, an 18-year-old girl, her long black hair flowing around her shoulders, took the microphone. She said she represented the young generation and first-time voters, the generation that stands up for its demands and asked, “Do you have the power to confront the morality police, the hijab monitors, and the autonomous security forces?”

Following the 1979 revolution when the mandatory hijab was announced, the restrictions on Iranian women sparked several movements by activists and the public challenging the mandatory hijab, seeking more freedom and rights for women. In recent times, women and their movements have become more strategic.

In 2013, before the presidential election civil and political activists had little opportunity for activism. However, the women activists who had gathered after the 2009 protests continued to meet after the elections, discussing women's participation in political power, and influencing the selection of new cabinet ministers. In 2015, they announced a campaign to change the male face of parliament, and in 2016 they organised a campaign against domestic violence.

The protests grew bolder. In 2017 the 31-year-old Vida Movahed stood on a metal box on Enghelab (Revolution) street in central Teheran without a hijab and silently, waved a white hijab on a stick, setting off many such acts of defiance by women, coming to be known as ‘The Girls of Revolution Street’. This time around, women from political and social elite circles also participated, who were earlier hesitant to speak out.

This one act of refusing to wear the hijab then became the cornerstone of the list of rights denied to them in the home and public life.

In September 2022, after Mahsa Amini 22, was arrested for violating the hijab law and died in the custody of the morality police, women and girls took to the streets nationwide, burning their headscarves and calling for freedom for women and an end to clerical rule. The ‘Women, Life, and Freedom Movement’ was born. Observers called it the first feminist uprising in the region.

Since 2020, the movement from legal advocacy to digital social protest has placed the social debate in public life, thanks to the Internet. Iranian women, like others around the world, have taken their activism to another level. Millions are sharing information about their personal experiences on social media, using Instagram, blogging, and also Virtual Private Network (VPN) to avoid censorship.

The movement ‘Women, Life and Freedom’ has demonstrated the unifying power and potential of women’s rights as a level for mobilisation and change. For 45 years, women's rights advocates have failed to get support from political parties in their protests against the imposition of compulsory hijab.

Will this election make a difference?

This article is authored by Anita Anand, communications and development specialist, New Delhi.