Iran: Female Student Arrested in Dress Code Protest

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Facts

  • Iranian authorities on Saturday arrested a student who stripped to her underclothes outside Tehran's Islamic Azad University in an apparent protest against the country's strict Islamic dress code. Video recordings showed authorities taking the woman away in a car.[1]
  • This came after members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps' paramilitary force reportedly ripped her headscarf and clothes for wearing "inappropriate clothes" in class. State-run Fars news agency said security personnel had "calmly" talked to her.[2]
  • Identified by the French and German media as Ahoo Daryaei, the university said that the student suffered from mental health issues, and following her "indecent act," campus security handed her over to law enforcement.[3][4]
  • A student group claimed that she was assaulted during her arrest. Under Iran's mandatory dress code, women must appear in public only with a headscarf and loose-fitting clothes.[5][6]
  • In July, Iranian police reportedly shot a 31-year-old woman, possibly leaving her paralyzed, over a headscarf violation. In addition, the 2022 death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody sparked protests in Iran leading to 500 deaths and 22K arrests.[7][8]
  • Iran recently intensified its hijab enforcement through the Noor Plan, reportedly utilizing Chinese surveillance technology to track women driving without headscarves. The UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Iran, Maio Sato, said she's monitoring this case.[9][10]

Sources: [1]France 24, [2]Voice of America, [3]CNN, [4]FOX News, [5]New York Post (a), [6]The Guardian, [7]NBC, [8]New York Post (b), [9]Associated Press and [10]Iran International.

Narratives

  • Anti-Iran narrative, as provided by The Guardian. Every day, Iranian women demonstrate extraordinary courage by simply choosing how to dress, knowing they risk arrest, violence, or worse. Two years after Mahsa Amini's death sparked the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, and women continue to resist the mandatory hijab law. Despite intensified pressure and harsh new legislation, they persist, reclaiming their bodily autonomy in cities and rural areas alike, showing that Iranian society has evolved far beyond its restrictive laws.
  • Pro-Iran narrative, as provided by The Eagle and Middle East Eye. The West paints Iranian women as oppressed by hijab laws while failing to address its own flawed perspectives. It often presents the hijab as the sole symbol of Iranian women's struggle, reducing their calls for autonomy to an "anti-Islam" stance. Yet, in France, Muslim women are banned from wearing hijabs — a stark parallel to the same domineering approach Western media condemns abroad. True solidarity would mean acknowledging the complex socio-political and cultural roots beyond the hijab.