It’s been six months since a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died after being taken into custody by the morality police for not adequately covering her head with the hijab. The ensuing protests were beaten down with particular brutality by the Iranian police and military. More than 400 Iranians were killed in the protests with about 19,000 arrested.
The regime was able to succeed in tamping down the demonstrations by utilizing a massive police presence in the large cities that quickly moved to break up gatherings of more than a few protesters. They also executed at least four protesters and hold 14 more under a sentence of death. This has worked — at least temporarily.
But anything could ignite the protests again. And activists may have found the trigger in Shandiz where a man now identified as Mostafa Abdi, an Islamist preacher and member of a fanatical adjunct to the Revolutionary Guards, the Basij militia, confronted two hijab-less women in a store and berated them, eventually dumping what appeared to be yogurt on their heads.
Two women have been arrested in Iran after an Iranian religious police agent found them not wearing hijab in public.
But first he poured Yogurt on their headpic.twitter.com/Gz1fOvuzRD
— Megh Updates 🚨™ (@MeghUpdates) April 1, 2023
The two women were quickly arrested for not wearing a hijab. But it wasn’t until the above video went viral that the regime arrested Abdi — for disturbing the peace.
The store owner kicked Abdi out of the store. But the unfortunate result of that act of solidarity with the women was that his store was closed by religious authorities.
On order of the authorities of #Iran‘s Islamic Regime, the Hajarpour supermarket was closed by Police because its owner defended the woman who was arracked by the Basiji militiaman, Mostafa Abdi. pic.twitter.com/d05tyuMJFL
— Babak Taghvaee – The Crisis Watch (@BabakTaghvaee1) April 1, 2023
Iran’s judiciary chief said that women “will be prosecuted without mercy” for uncovering their heads.
Following protests in recent months, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said on Saturday: “Unveiling is tantamount to enmity with [our] values.
“Those who commit such anomalous acts will be punished and will be prosecuted without mercy.”
He did not specify what the punishment would be, but violations of state laws on hijabs have seen people face arrest, fines, imprisonment and even the death sentence.
Women across the country have been refusing to wear their headscarves following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.
The anti-hijab protest movement hasn’t been killed. It’s just gone underground. And the wall supporting this “gender apartheid” is torn down, brick by brick, by brave women and girls who refuse to knuckle under to tyranny.
A woman who was singing in the city of Tabriz, Iran.
According to the laws of the Islamic Republic, she has now committed two crimes: she has removed her mandatory hijab and she is also singing. Both of these are prohibited for women in Iran.
But the Iranian women, especially… pic.twitter.com/q77EAQsLFL
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) March 29, 2023
You gotto love Iranian women, they have crippled the regime as a wave of women without hijab is washing over Iran defying forced hijab law. Scenes like this all over Iran was unimaginable before #WomenLifeFreedom pic.twitter.com/MuVId5DKu4
— mina bai (@bai_mina) April 2, 2023
No dancing women in Iran either. Men are likely to die of boredom before any other illness takes them.
5 girls posted a dancing reel, govt arrested them as it is illegal for women to dance in public in Iran.
It backfired, the govt action inspired girls across nation to post their own dance clips 😄
Women empowerment in such a simple form!✊🏼pic.twitter.com/QMKM3ji8Jz
— APJ (@apj234) April 1, 2023
“Flipping the bird” to a religious sign.
Women in Iran respond to a sign that reads: “Wearing Hijab is respecting holly values.” #MahsaAmini #WomanLifeFreedom pic.twitter.com/Yu48RSW03C
— Armin Navabi (@ArminNavabi) April 2, 2023
Hard-line lawmakers are fighting back by jacking up penalties for not wearing a hijab.
The proposed measures would impose fines of up to $60,000 on women who violate the law as well as the confiscation of their passports and driver’s licenses, according to lawmaker Hossein Jalali.
Another member of parliament, Bijan Nobaveh, said the proposed measures also include using surveillance cameras to monitor if women in public are wearing the compulsory hijab. As punishment, offenders would be denied mobile phone and Internet services, he said.
Separately, officials with the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) said members of the Basij paramilitary forces will be deployed in the holy Shi’ite city of Qom during the fasting month of Ramadan to promote and enforce “the culture of hijab.”
Iran right now is a powder keg ready to explode. It won’t take much to set off another round of protests and brutal crackdowns. This was the pattern during the first Iranian revolution in 1979. A wave of successive protests finally toppled the shah and blew up the Islamist regime.
Now, 44 years later, the script may be flipped, and the Islamists could find themselves out of power.