August 09, 2019
The regime has announced that women who actively promote walking around without a headscarf will now be subject to prison terms of up to 10 years, a vast change from the current law that contains a maximum sentence of two months.
The Majlis has not changed the law on headscarves. It appears that the regime is now going to charge such women with crimes of political opposition rather than crimes under the headscarf law.
They will specifically face the punishment for posting images or video online, and for sending them to Masih Alinejad, a US-based activist who founded the “White Wednesdays” campaign in Iran to oppose compulsory head covering.
The Fars news agency quoted the head of the Tehran Revolutionary Court, Musa Ghazanfarabadi, as saying, “Those who film themselves or others while removing the hejab and send photos to this woman … will be sentenced to between one and 10 years in prison.”
Wearing the Islamic headscarf is mandatory in public. Those who violate the law have faced up to two months in prison and a fine, but usually just a warning on the first offense.
Scores of women in Iran have been arrested for removing their headscarves as part of the “White Wednesdays” campaign since it began in December 2017.
Despite the two-month maximum, last year, an Iranian woman was sentenced to two years in prison and 18 years’ probation for removing her headscarf in a protest. Shaparak Shajarizadeh said she had been sentenced for “opposing the compulsory hejab” and “waving a white flag of peace in the street.”
After the announcement of the sentencing scheme, it was revealed that three women arrested earlier this year for their opposition to the mandatory headscarf law had been sentenced to prison terms well in excess of 10 years.
Monireh Arabshahi and her daughter, Yasamin Aryani, were each sentenced to 16 years while Mojgan Keshavarz was handed a 23-1/2-year sentence, according to the Iran Human Rights Monitor.
The trio was arrested after walking through Metro cars in Tehran without any head coverings and handing out flowers to women while discussing their opposition to the headscarf rule.