Iran’s President Ebrahim Raisi is urging that the hijab is the law in Iran after a viral video showed a man pouring yogurt on two unveiled women near a Shiite Muslim city.
An arrest warrant was issued for the attacker as well as for the two women, a mother and her daughter, for flouting Iran’s strict female dress code, state media reported.
Growing numbers of women have defied authorities by discarding their veils after nationwide protests following the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 while in the custody of Tehran’s morality police for allegedly violating the hijab rules. Security forces violently put down the revolt.
Video footage widely shared on social media in the Islamic Republic appeared to show the two women in a shop being assaulted by a man after a verbal altercation. The man was shown pouring a bucket of yogurt on the heads of the two female customers before being confronted by the shopkeeper.
Authorities ordered an arrest of the man for “committing an insulting act and disturbance of order.” But it added that arrest warrants were also issued for the women for “committing a forbidden act” by removing their headscarves.
In televised remarks, Raisi said, “If some people say they don’t believe (in the hijab), it’s good to use persuasion. But the important point is that there is a legal requirement, and the hijab is today a legal matter.”
Under Iran’s Islamic sharia law imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Last week, Iran’s Interior Ministry described the veil as “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation,” and said there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the issue. It further urged citizens to confront unveiled women. –i24 News
When asked whether the yogurt attack strengthened her resolve to continue to discard her hijab, the victim of the yogurt attack told reporters on Sunday: “Unfortunately, the answer to your question is ‘No’. From now on, I’m wearing my hijab 24/7.”
“I’d rather spend one hour of my time cleaning off yogurt from a hijab, than 3 hours of my time trying to rinse out all of the yogurt from my hair,” she rationalized.