Everyone, about thirty people, move their heads up and down to the rhythm of the music. Before the audience, a group of four musicians—one of them is a woman—play ‘Seven Nation Army’very famous song by the American rock group ‘The White Stripes’.
All the musicians—and the music—are dressed as required: all in black, long sleeves, some loose piercings, and, above all, long hair in the open. The scene would seem normal if it had not happened two weeks ago in Tehranthe Iranian capital, a place where everything that happened that night is prohibited: from a meeting on the street of men and women together, to american musicwomen dancing in public and, on top of that, none wearing the mandatory veil.
But it happened, and in recent months the image has become everyday in the Persian capital. There are more and more Iran those who defy the rules imposed by a Islamic Republic increasingly retreating.
It was not so long ago—three years and two months—that the death of the young Mahsa Aminídetained by the morality police precisely by wearing the Islamic veil in a supposedly incorrect way unleashed a wave of protests and brutal repression, which mutated into a resistance movement of women who began to remove their hijab in public spaces. The Islamic Republic reacted and intensified its measures to maintain the mandatory nature of the veil: from video surveillance cameras in the streets until harsher penalties for women not to wear the mandatory veil and the deployment of more morality officers in cities.
But a year ago, the ultraconservative Iranian president Ebrahim Raisí He died in a helicopter accident, and a moderate was elected to his position, Mesud Pezeshkian.
Then, in June of this year, the turning point arrived: the defeat in the bombing war of 12 days against Israelwhich almost completely beheaded Iran’s military leadership, has left the Islamic Republic in a position of enormous weakness, both inside and outside the country.
Scenes of unveiled women on the streets now not only occur in middle-class and progressive neighborhoods in northern Tehran, but also occur—somewhat less, of course—in more conservative regions and cities, such as Kermanshah, Hamedan and Dezful.
“The Islamic Republic is walking through a fragile line in which it is being surpassed by an increasingly large number of women and girls who do not respect the mandatory hijab laws, while the country’s leaders fear that excessive repression against women who defy them could drive people to the streets,” writes the expert of the think tank Washington Institute, Holly Dagres.
Anonymous Iranian officials quoted by the international press have openly claimed in recent weeks that the government has stopped enforcing the veil laws for fear of “unrest in a moment of serious economic conditionsa water crisis and increasingly strict international sanctions for nuclear program [iraní]”.
Closures and surveillance
All this, however, does not mean that the pressure and repression have disappeared. “Women in Iran are still monitored, fined, and imprisoned for exercising their fundamental rights to freedom of expression and rejecting laws that are deeply discriminatory. “The Iranian authorities may be, for the moment, avoiding violent reprisals against women who wear the hijab incorrectly, but we see that the Government is clearly continuing its intention to fight against women’s rights,” explains Handarí’director of Center for Human Rights in Iranan NGO in exile.
This organization has documented from June to October of this year the closure of more than 50 establishmentsincluding shops, cafes, restaurants and wedding halls, for allowing women with “inappropriate” hijabs to congregate in them.
“Women and girls in Iran continue to refuse to wear the mandatory veil in public, despite the risks that still exist, even though they are less visible,” says Ghanderhari. “These acts of daily defiance reflect that something bigger is happening in Iran: a cultural revolution”.
Subscribe to continue reading
