Fines and up to 15 years in prison: Women in Iran will in future face high penalties if they violate the headscarf requirement. But the conservative Guardian Council has now blocked the bill. He demands improvements.
Iran’s Guardian Council has initially blocked the controversial new headscarf law. The control committee, which includes conservative Islamic clerics, called for significant improvements from Parliament, according to a statement from the Council.
In its most recent version, the law provides for harsh penalties for violating Islamic dress codes. In the event of multiple violations, fines are imposed; in extreme cases, up to 15 years in prison and the equivalent of more than 5,000 euros can be imposed. Foreigners could be expelled from the country.
Publishing photos online without a headscarf should also be made a punishable offence. The judiciary also threatens to close shopping malls, restaurants and museums if violations occur. Insults against veiled women can result in up to six months in prison and 74 lashes.
Response to wave of protests after Amini’s death
Using a political trick, a commission approved the plans at the end of September without a vote in the plenary session of Parliament. The planned tightening measures are a response by the clerical and political leadership to the women-led protests against the Islamic Republic since autumn 2022, which were triggered by the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini.
Amini was violently arrested by moral watchdogs because of an allegedly ill-fitting headscarf, fell into a coma and died just a few days later. Since then, many women have ignored the obligation to wear a headscarf.
The Guardian Council also criticized the procedure in a statement. The law cannot be passed using a constitutional trick. Numerous wordings in the law with 70 articles are unclear. As an example, the Council criticized the fact that “unchastity” was listed as an offense in several places but was not defined.
Criticism from the UN
There is a lot of criticism of the planned law abroad. At the end of September, UN Human Rights Commissioner Volker Türk condemned the regulation as “repressive and also degrading”. It blatantly violates international law and must be stopped. The UN human rights office called on Iran to “eliminate this and all other forms of gender discrimination and repeal all related laws and practices.”
The headscarf requirement has been the law for more than 40 years in the country, which now has a population of almost 90 million. Duty is considered one of the ideological pillars of the Islamic Republic.