Protest-Hit Iran Says Reviewing Mandatory Headscarf Law

Iran's parliament and the judiciary are reviewing a law which requires women to cover their heads, and which triggered more than two months of deadly protests, the attorney general said. (AFP/File)
Iran's parliament and the judiciary are reviewing a law which requires women to cover their heads, and which triggered more than two months of deadly protests, the attorney general said. (AFP/File)
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Protest-Hit Iran Says Reviewing Mandatory Headscarf Law

Iran's parliament and the judiciary are reviewing a law which requires women to cover their heads, and which triggered more than two months of deadly protests, the attorney general said. (AFP/File)
Iran's parliament and the judiciary are reviewing a law which requires women to cover their heads, and which triggered more than two months of deadly protests, the attorney general said. (AFP/File)

Iran said Saturday it is reviewing a decades-old law that requires women to cover their heads, as it struggles to quell more than two months of protests linked to the dress code.

Protests have swept Iran since the September 16 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin arrested by the morality police for allegedly flouting the religious-based law.

Demonstrators have burned their head coverings and shouted anti-government slogans. Since Amini's death, a growing number of women have not been observing hijab, particularly in Tehran's fashionable north.

"Both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the issue)" of whether the law needs any changes, Iran's attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said.

Quoted by the ISNA news agency, he did not specify what could be modified in the law by the two bodies, which are largely in the hands of conservatives.

The review team met on Wednesday with parliament's cultural commission "and will see the results in a week or two", the attorney general said.

President Ebrahim Raisi on Saturday said Iran's republican and Islamic foundations were constitutionally entrenched.

"But there are methods of implementing the constitution that can be flexible," he said in televised comments.

The hijab headscarf became obligatory for all women in Iran in April 1983, four years after the revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy.

It remains a highly sensitive issue in a country where conservatives insist it should be compulsory, while reformists want to leave it up to individual choice.

Hundreds killed

After the hijab law became mandatory, with changing clothing norms it became commonplace to see women in tight jeans and loose, colorful headscarves.

But in July this year Raisi, an ultra-conservative, called for mobilization of "all state institutions to enforce the headscarf law".

Many women continued to bend the rules, however.

In September, Iran's main reformist party called for the mandatory hijab law to be rescinded.

The Union of Islamic Iran People Party, formed by relatives of former reformist president Mohammad Khatami, on Saturday demanded the authorities "prepare the legal elements paving the way for the cancellation of the mandatory hijab law".

The opposition group is also calling for the Islamic republic to "officially announce the end of the activities of the morality police" and "allow peaceful demonstrations", it said in a statement.

Iran accuses its sworn enemy the United States and its allies, including Britain, Israel, and Kurdish groups based outside the country, of fomenting the street protests which the government calls "riots".

A general in Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps this week, for the first time, said more than 300 people have lost their lives in the unrest since Amini's death.

Iran's top security body, the Supreme National Security Council, on Saturday said the number of people killed during the protests "exceeds 200".

Cited by state news agency IRNA, it said the figure included security officers, civilians and "separatists" as well as "rioters".

Oslo-based non-governmental organisation Iran Human Rights on Tuesday said at least 448 people had been "killed by security forces in the ongoing nationwide protests".

UN rights chief Volker Turk said last week that 14,000 people, including children, had been arrested in the protest crackdown.

The Supreme National Security Council said that in addition to the human toll, the violence had caused damage valued at trillions of rials (millions of dollars).



Biden Reaffirms Support for Weapons Surge to Ukraine after Russia’s Christmas Attack

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, US, December 10, 2024. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, US, December 10, 2024. (Reuters)
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Biden Reaffirms Support for Weapons Surge to Ukraine after Russia’s Christmas Attack

US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, US, December 10, 2024. (Reuters)
US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the economy at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, US, December 10, 2024. (Reuters)

US President Joe Biden said on Wednesday he had asked the Defense Department to continue its surge of weapons deliveries to Ukraine, after condemning Russia's Christmas Day attack on Ukraine's energy system and some of its cities.

Russia attacked Ukraine on Wednesday with cruise and ballistic missiles, as well as drones, Ukraine said. The strikes wounded at least six people in the northeastern city of Kharkiv and killed one in the region of Dnipropetrovsk, the governors there said.

Nearly three years into the war, Washington has committed $175 billion in aid for Ukraine, but it is uncertain if the aid will continue at that pace under Republican President-elect Donald Trump, who replaces Biden on Jan. 20. Trump has said he wants to bring the war to a swift end.

"The purpose of this outrageous attack was to cut off the Ukrainian people's access to heat and electricity during winter and to jeopardize the safety of its grid," Biden, a Democrat, said in a statement.

Keith Kellogg, Trump's pick for special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, also criticized Wednesday's attack.

"Christmas should be a time of peace, yet Ukraine was brutally attacked on Christmas Day," Kellogg said. "The US is more resolved than ever to bring peace to the region."

During the presidential election campaign, Trump questioned the level of US involvement in the conflict, suggesting European allies should bear more of the financial burden. Some of his fellow Republicans - who will control both the House of Representatives and Senate starting next month - have also cooled on sending more aid to Kyiv.

This stance - despite previous strong support in the US Congress for sustained or expanded support for Ukraine - has raised concerns among Ukraine's supporters about the future of US assistance under Trump.