Iran presses on with crackdown over headscarf ahead of Presidential polls

Iran intensifies crackdown on women not wearing hijabs, sparking protests and arrests, as hard-liners push for stricter enforcement.

Almost every afternoon in Iran’s capital, police vans rush to major Tehran squares and intersections to search for women with loose headscarves and those who dare not to wear them at all.

The renewed crackdown comes barely two years since mass protests over the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini who was detained for not wearing a scarf to the authorities’ liking.

Amini’s death in September 2022 sparked months of protests and a security crackdown that killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained, and for a time morality police disappeared from the streets. Now, hard-liners within Iran’s theocracy have pressed forward with a crackdown. Videos are emerging of women being physically forced into vans by police as lawmakers continue to push for harsher penalties. Meanwhile, authorities have seized thousands of cars over women having their hair uncovered while also targeting businesses that serve them.

The renewed hijab push, which police are calling the Noor (light) Plan, began before former President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash, and whoever wins a vote to replace the hard-line cleric on Friday will have an influence over just how intense it becomes — and how Iran responds to any further unrest.

“An intervention ... under the Noor Plan will take us into darkness,” reformist presidential candidate Masoud Pezeshkian recently told a group of female supporters.

Enforcement began ramping up in April, with videos spreading online showing women having violent encounters with female enforcers dressed in the all-encompassing black chador alongside uniformed police officers.

While police haven’t published arrest numbers about the crackdown and media haven’t given it major attention, it’s widely discussed in Iran. But still, many women continue to wear their hijabs loosely or leave them draped around their shoulders while walking in Tehran.