Iran's police crackdown against unveiled Ashura mourners highlights growing tensions over hijab law

The summoning and prosecution of a group of girls who participated in the Ashura ceremony without covering their hair has once again brought the issue of mandatory Islamic hijab in Iran to the forefront.

Many believe this incident serves as a warning that, with conservatives leaving the presidential office, pressures on civil society, opponents of the mandatory hijab, and political activists will increase.

On Tuesday, a video went viral on Farsi social media showing a group of young girls participating in the religious Ashura ceremony without head coverings in Karaj, about 42 kilometres from the capital, Tehran.

Ashura is a religious mourning ceremony during which followers of the Shia branch of Islam commemorate the death of Hussein bin Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad and the third Shia Imam, who was killed in Karbala more than 1,300 years ago.

A day after this year's Ashura, Brigadier General Hamid Hodavand, a provincial police chief, announced that the girls seen in the video had been "identified and summoned."

He did not provide further information about their identities or the charges against them but stated that the presence of the girls without headscarves had "hurt the feelings of mourners across the country" and that the police would not "tolerate any desecration of the sacred area of [Shia] Imams."

In contrast to the police, some legal experts emphasized that it was the defiance of the Islamic hijab law that upset the judicial and law enforcement systems.

"The police have identified these individuals as responsible for harming mourners nationwide. However, the law does not recognize 'hurting the feelings of mourners' as a criminal charge," Mohammad Reza Faqihi, a lawyer, stressed. 

Since the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, in the custody of the Islamic Morality Police in September 2022, defying the compulsory Islamic hijab has become a symbol of anti-establishment sentiment.

Last year, there were also reports of women participating in Ashura mourning without covering their heads. However, this year, following the victory of Massoud Pezeshkian in the presidential election and the loss of hardliners, pressures on society and restrictions on social freedoms have increased.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Majid Babakhani, director of religious centres at the Islamic Propaganda Organization, announced that the mourning centre in Karaj had been warned about observing the Islamic hijab before Muharram, claiming the centre's members had planned to mourn without the hijab.

"Following this incident, the head of the delegation was summoned by the police, and legal proceedings against him are ongoing, as the incident was premeditated. The media team that distributed the video was also organised, and the security and intelligence agencies are handling the case," he was quoted as saying.

Despite the officials' claims and accusations, experts such as sociologist Mohammad Reza Javadi Yeganeh highlighted the contrast between society's and extremists' views on social changes, emphasising the discriminatory rules and regulations against women.

"From the point of view of Sharia rules, what is the difference between a woman without a hijab who participates in the ceremony and a man with a shaved beard who is in mourning? Both have violated Sharia rulings, but Sharia is more tolerant towards men," Yeganeh wrote on the X social media platform.