A small victory was achieved for Women In Iran who have fought against repressive Dress Code laws. The police in Tehran announced that they will no longer arrest women who are not wearing their hijabs in public. This comes after protesters took to the streets and the internet to have their voices heard. Women in Iran have been subject to strict dress code laws since the 1979 revolution. That revolution saw hard-line, conservative Muslims take power and a set of repressive laws were put into place. This is the first major rollback of those laws.
It is not the end of the Iranian dress code
The police in Tehran made their announcement earlier this week. Although the changes are significant, the hijab for women will still be required. The real change that has been made is that offenders will no longer be arrested and held in jail. Instead, they will be required to attend a class that will be held by the police. According to Radio Free Europe the announcement was made by Tansim, a semi-official news agency in the country.
Protests have grown
Protests have been going on for a long time in the conservative Islamic nation. As there were women marching here in America earlier this year, women have been marching in Iran as well. They have been staging weekly protests known as #WhiteWednesdays.
Men and women dress in white to show solidarity with the women that have been repressed under the compulsory hijab laws. These were started by the exiled journalist, Masih Alinejad. In her campaign under the name of My Stealthy Freedom she has encouraged women to throw off their hijabs and wear their hair down in public.
#Woman in #Tehran protests compulsory hijab as part of #WhiteWednesdays campaign https://t.co/yiIBCKdN7x pic.twitter.com/csOTJa9Ivi
— My Stealthy Freedom (@masihpooyan) December 29, 2017
The campaign has gained international attention.
Iran is seeing a change
The country has now elected Hassan Rouhani as president twice. He ran as a reformer and since then, Iran has seen policy changes that follow a reformist trend. From the nuclear deal with the United States to these recent changes in the dress code for Tehran, reform is slowly gaining a foothold within the country.
This is after decades of repressive policies which took particular aim at women. They were required to follow a strict dress code after the 1979 revolution and have since been punished when in violation of that code. Even though the new policy is only applicable in the capital city of Tehran it still represents a larger change overall. It remains to be seen if more reforms will be made after this policy change.
