November 19, 2021
Kamal Hadianfar, traffic chief for the national police force, says women will “definitively” be arrested if they are found driving two-wheeled vehicles.
Hadianfar told the media October 19 that only men’s names are allowed on motorcycle licenses. As such, he said, no woman can legally drive one.
Women on motorbikes have been harassed and sometimes arrested on several occasions over the past few years. In 2017, two women were arrested in Dezful and in August 2021, a woman was detained in Mashhad.
In 2016, in response to a question from the Fars news agency about the legality of the ban, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenehi said: “Women’s cycling in public and in the presence of male non-relations, often attracts the attention of men. It tends toward sedition and corruption in society, and runs contrary to women’s chastity.”
Motorbikes and motor scooters have become especially popular with women and teenagers in recent years because they did not until recently require license plates or a driver’s license. That changed in August 2018 when the police ordered that all motorized vehicles have license plates and be driven only by licensed drivers.
A year later, the Administrative Court ruled that women could obtain driver’s licenses for two wheeled vehicles. But Hadianfar’s police denounced that ruling, according to the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA).
General Hadianfar doesn’t just challenge the right of women to drive two-wheeled vehicles. He is a vocal enforcer of what he considers to be Islamic morals. He has long campaigned against dog ownership, tinted car windows that can hide what is going on inside and loud music spilling from car radios.