Iran launches 'Noor' campaign to tighten implementation of hijab rule

Iranian authorities in the capital city of Tehran have launched a campaign named ‘Noor’ to tighten the implementation of the hijab rule for women.

Women in Iran are required by law to wear hijab, Islamic head-coverings, in public places. They are also barred from wearing clothes that are either too form-fitting or reveal much skin. The dress code was implemented in the country after the Islamic Revolution of 1979 that overthrew the liberal, pro-West monarchy and replaced it with a conservative clergy.

In 2022, the opposition to mandatory wearing of hijab triggered months of women-led, nationwide protests in Iran after a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of the country’s morality police. She had been detained over an alleged violation of the hijab law. In these protests across Iran, women often took to streets in large numbers and took off their hijabs, burnt them, and cut their hair in public in defiance of the Iranian regime’s diktats.

More from World

This Week in Explainers: How recovering from Gen-Z protests is a Himalayan task for Nepal Zohran Mamdani says he would arrest Netanyahu if he is elected as NYC mayor, calls Israeli PM 'war criminal'

Even though the Iranian regime clamped down on protests by the middle of 2023, the morality police had maintained a low profile since. That may change now as the authorities are back to implementing the law rigorously under the ‘Noor’ campaign, according to AFP.

“From today the police in Tehran, as in other provinces, will implement their measures against this sort of violation of the law regarding hijab,” said Tehran’s police chief Abbas Ali Mohammadian, as per the report.

Mohammadian further said, “People who did not pay attention to previous police warnings will be specially warned in the city from today and legal action will be taken against them.”

Impact Shorts

More Shorts

‘The cries of this widow will echo’: In first public remarks, Erika Kirk warns Charlie’s killers they’ve ‘unleashed a fire’

Trump urges Nato to back sanctions on Russia, calls for 50–100% tariffs on China

The announcement came days after Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, in a speech emphasised that women in Iran must obey the dress code regardless of their beliefs, according to the report.

Khamenei said, “The hijab issue, which has now become an imposed challenge, did not exist before the intervention of foreigners.”

On Saturday, Iran’s Ham Mihan daily posted “images of the presence of patrol vans” from the morality police in central Tehran’s Valiasr Square.

The AFP noted that there have been reports in the Iranian media over recent months that police have seized vehicles transporting women without veils and punished their owners.

In their bid to implement the hijab law, the Iranian authorities have also shut cafes and restaurants where the wearing of the hijab was not respected, according to the report.