Iran wants to pass controversial headscarf law behind closed doors and without public debate

The Government of Iran is seeking to urgently and behind closed doors approve the new veil law, which would toughen penalties for non-use of the Islamic garment, in a small committee and not in a plenary session of Parliament to "prevent an anti-hijab movement."

The Iranian Parliament approved on Sunday to refer the "Bill on Support for the Culture of Chastity and Hijab” to a judicial and cultural commission with 175 votes in favor, 49 against and 5 abstentions from the total of 238 deputies present, the Icana hemicycle website reported.

Thus, the Executive avoids presenting the law to the 290 parliamentarians and the public debate that entails, in addition to reviewing the numerous amendments that have been presented, months before the March parliamentary elections.

The project will be studied and voted on by a judicial and cultural commission behind closed doors that has the capacity to approve the project “on a trial basis” for a period of time between three and five years, something that the country's Constitution allows in its article 85.

The chairman of the parliament's judicial committee, which will study the law, Mousa Ghazanfaribadi, said today that “if sins related to chastity and hijab occur every day it is because of the delay in the approval of this law". 

Another of the promoters of the law, conservative Hossein Ali Haji Deligani, argued that it is necessary to approve the text in this way because “we see that the situation has no limits, it is getting worse. We have to prevent an anti-hijab movement”"

However, parliamentarians such as Gholamreza Nouri Qezeljeh showed their rejection of the legislative project considering that it focuses too much on ”punishing“ the lack of wearing the veil, which entails ”dangers".

This movement against the hijab actually began on September 16 last year, after the young Mahsa Amini died after being detained by the so-called Morality Police in Tehran, which provoked strong protests for months throughout the country.

Since then, many Iranians have stopped wearing the forced veil, a garment that represents for them the visible form of discrimination they suffer, which goes far beyond having to cover their heads.

The Iranian authorities have resorted to various methods to reimpose the use of the garment with the return to the streets of the country of the dreaded morality police and punishments such as cleaning corpses or scrubbing public buildings.

The President of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, affirmed this week that “this thing of taking off the veil is going to end definitively” and maintained that women who do not cover themselves are “unconscious ones” who need to be “made aware”. EFE