Iran women defy hijab as wartime fears split regime over crackdown

Social restrictions on women in Tehran have eased sharply in the years since the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini sparked mass protests, with many women now appearing in public without headscarves and in clothes that would once have drawn punishment. Videos on social media show women sitting at outdoor cafes without hijabs, exercising with men in parks and dancing at concerts, underlining how much day-to-day enforcement has weakened.

But the shift has opened a new fault line inside Iran's ruling establishment. Hard-liners are demanding stricter action on women's dress, while senior figures have warned against provoking fresh unrest at a time of war, with US attacks, sanctions and a naval blockade deepening economic strain.

Amini, 22, died on September 16, 2022, after being detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly. The protests that followed were crushed in a crackdown in which more than 500 people were killed and thousands were arrested. Since then, however, authorities have stepped back from strict enforcement of rules requiring the hijab and modest dress for women.

The question now, the report said, is whether that retreat can be reversed. "We can't enter into that front as we ought to because of wartime conditions," Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, a politician and father-in-law of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said last week in public remarks about headscarves.

Pouran Nazemi, an activist and former political prisoner living in Tehran, said differences over the hijab had sharpened after the war began. "They are afraid of protests," she said in a phone interview.

A university student in her early 20s from an affluent northern part of Tehran said she no longer wears a headscarf but still chooses clothes that cover most of her arms and legs. "I feel like I am wearing too much," she said, adding that some of her friends wear tops showing bare shoulders and shorts reaching the knee. She spoke on condition of anonymity because of security fears.

Under Iran's strictest interpretation of the rules, women are required to wear a scarf covering the hair and loose-fitting clothes concealing the body. Over the years, morality police have fined, harassed or arrested women seen as breaking those rules. But over the past decade, many women steadily pushed the limits by showing more hair and wearing more fitted clothing. Since 2022, many have stopped wearing the headscarf entirely, and more recently some women in parts of Tehran have shown their arms, legs and even stomachs.

In a piece published on Wednesday, four years after Amini's death, the hard-line newspaper Kayhan, which is overseen by the supreme leader, said the removal of headscarves had grown into "promoting nudity and permissiveness" and called it a "security threat". The report said judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei had called for "prudent and urgent action" on headscarves.

Hard-liners now hold nightly rallies across Iran, attended by women in black conservative robes and head coverings, though even at these gatherings some women without headscarves can be seen. The hijab has again become a divisive issue between pragmatists and hard-liners inside the ruling theocracy, alongside wider disputes over whether to negotiate with the US or escalate the war.

Many of the demands for stricter enforcement have come from figures linked to the supreme leader's office, though it remains unclear whether they reflect the position of Mojtaba Khamenei. He has not appeared in public or released any audio or video since succeeding his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed in an Israeli strike on February 28. The elder Khamenei had long called for firm enforcement of the hijab.

In a sermon on August 28 in the eastern shrine city of Mashhad, Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader and the supreme leader's representative in the province, described women without the hijab and others he called irreligious as a domestic force the US could use against Iran. He urged officials to use "all their resources" to curb such behaviour.

Some conservative politicians and media outlets have accused pragmatist President Masoud Pezeshkian of blocking a tougher hijab policy. "As soon as we say anything, they say there's a war, let's not make trouble," Abdol Hossein Khosrowpanah told reporters last week after a meeting with officials on headscarves. Khosrowpanah heads a state body overseeing universities and cultural institutions that is controlled by the supreme leader.

Authorities have briefly shut some Tehran cafes and public places for alleged hijab violations, but the effort has not widened. Iranian leaders remain cautious, especially as intensified US sanctions, which they say are meant to stir public unrest, add to pressure on the country. In January, protests over a currency crash spread into nationwide marches calling for the overthrow of the Islamic Republic, and the subsequent crackdown killed thousands.

Women are now finding that they can move around with uncovered hair even in places where rules were once enforced most strictly. A Tehran resident in her mid-30s said she recently went without a headscarf to a government office, where the hijab has usually been closely enforced. She also spoke on condition of anonymity because of security fears.

Three women in Tehran told AP that security forces had not commented on their lack of a hijab when they passed through street checkpoints, where members of the Basij are often present. The Basij is the volunteer force used to enforce morality rules and suppress protests. Its new chief, hard-line cleric Hossein Taeb, a former intelligence chief, told commanders last week that the headscarf issue should be handled in a way that does not damage "internal cohesion", according to the semi-official Mehr news agency. That echoed a statement by Khamenei last month that gave priority to the war over other matters.

At the same time, women continue to face morals-related charges. In a video posted on Instagram on August 19, singer Hiwa Seyfizade said she had been sentenced to four years in prison after performing at a public concert in Tehran last year.

The hijab has repeatedly been at the centre of major turning points in modern Iranian history. In the 1930s, the monarchy forced women to remove headscarves as part of a Westernising drive. After the shah was overthrown in 1979, the mandatory hijab became a defining principle of clerical rule.

"Women who don't put it on are, in a way, carrying out civil disobedience toward the government," said Sedigheh Vasmaghi, a lawyer and former political prisoner, speaking by phone from northern Iran. She said the deaths of Amini and other women targeted over dress violations led her to stop wearing the headscarf in 2023 after decades of doing so. Vasmaghi, a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence who has written widely on women in Islam, was detained in 2024 after openly arguing that Islam provided no basis for a mandatory hijab.

"Taking off the headscarf wasn't an easy thing, especially for a person like myself," Vasmaghi said. She added that she feared the authorities might attempt another crackdown once the war ends, though she noted that earlier efforts had failed.

For now, the debate over the hijab reflects a wider struggle inside Iran over how far the state can enforce social controls without risking another public backlash. As Nazemi put it, "People aren't going to go back to how it was. They aren't capable of doing it."

With PTI Inputs

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