Iran's chief justice vows 'no mercy' for women refusing to wear hijab

Tehran: Iranian media reported on Saturday that the head of Iran’s judiciary has vowed to prosecute women “without mercy” for not wearing hijab in public.

Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning comes on the heels of an interior ministry statement on Thursday that reinforced the government’s mandatory hijab legislation.

According to several news outlets, Ejei stated that “unveiling is equivalent to enmity with [our] values.” He did not specify what the punishment would be, only that those “who commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and “prosecuted without mercy.”

The chief justice of Iran, Ejei, stated that law enforcement officials were “required to refer obvious crimes and any kind of abnormality that is against the religious law and occurs in public to judicial authorities.”

Since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman while in the care of the “morality police” in September of last year, an increasing number of Iranian women have decided to remove their headscarves. Mahsa Amini was held for purportedly disobeying the headscarf law.

After she died, government troops violently put down a national uprising that had been brewing for months.

However, it is common to see women walking around without hijab in malls, eateries, shops, and on the streets, risking arrest for disobeying the dress code.

The “morality police” are being resisted by covered women in videos that have taken over social media.

Women in Iran are required to cover their hair and wear long, baggy clothing to hide their figures under the Islamic sharia rule that was implemented following the 1979 revolution. Offenders have been subject to public censure, penalties, or arrest.

The Interior Ministry declared on Thursday that there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the subject and referred to the veil as “one of the civilisational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic.”

It exhorted regular people to approach exposed women. Such orders have given hardline Islamists the confidence to assault women with freedom in the past.

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