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Journalism of Courage
Ever since the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, allegedly in police custody for not wearing a hijab properly in Iran’s capital Tehran, there have been widespread protests on the streets. To oppose the repression, Iranian women have also come up with new ways of protest.
They are cutting their hair and posting their videos on social media to protest against the country’s strict “hijab rules”. Iranian women are also burning their hijab. Mahsa Amini died on Friday following her arrest earlier in the week by the country’s ‘morality police’. She went into a coma and suffered a heart attack following her detention, according to media reports.
Videos on social media show women cutting their hair in anger and burning their hijab. Masih Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, shared a compilation video of many Iranian women cutting their hair and it has received more than four million views.
“Iranian women show their anger by cutting their hair and burning their hijab to protest against the killing of #Mahsa_Amini by hijab police. From the age of 7 if we don’t cover our hair we won’t be able to go to school or get a job. We are fed up with this gender apartheid regime,” she captioned the video.
https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1571479790883946500
“THIS is what ‘stunning and brave’ looks like,” commented a Twitter user.
“This is due to the regime who is selling religion for political purposes. It is not about the religion itself. It is true that in islam it is compulsory for women to wear hijab, but there is no order to kill women because they are not wearing hijab,” said another.
Under Iran’s sharia (Islamic) law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Violators face public rebuke, fines or arrest.
