Tossing Turbans Of Clerics Becomes A New Protest Act In Iran
The newest manifestation of protests in Iran is flipping turbans of the clergy, something profoundly worrisome for Islamic Republic’s authorities as well as Muslim clerics abroad.
The newest manifestation of protests in Iran is flipping turbans of the clergy, something profoundly worrisome for Islamic Republic’s authorities as well as Muslim clerics abroad.
Tossing the turbans of clergymen as they are walking in streets is now part of the current wave of antigovernment protests across Iran, which started as a reaction to the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in custody of hijab police. Younger Iranians tired of government attempts to force them to observe the mandatory Islamic dress code and a restricted lifestyle, began protests and disobedience in mid-September.
In recent weeks, people have started knocking off or stealing the turbans worn by clerics as they are traditionally seen as the symbols of the Islamic Republic, no matter their political inclination.
Turbans as well as other Islamic attires have been used in Iran even before the Islamic Revolution but the styles and quality of the cloth used changed with the advent of the Islamic Republic and the rise to power of the mullahs. One of the new fashions is called crown-style turban, in which the front side of the turban is a bit elevated.
There are some people on social media – even from the anti-regime camp – that describe the move as not totally civil and against personal freedoms, but most are of the opinion that this is only a show of defiance against the country’s strict rules that justify violence against women deemed as loosely veiled in public.
Ironically, in a society where women felt insecure over their appearance, it is time that mullahs understand how women felt for the past 40 years, proponents of ‘turban tossing’ say. Some argue that if the mullahs were arrested violently on streets, taken to a detention center humiliated and threatened, and were not allowed to leave, that is when they would better feel how women were treated on streets by the ‘morality police’ all these years.
Masih Alinejad, one of the first Iranian anti-hijab activists, says that clerics had it coming after harassing women in public over hijab for years.
Some of the protesters are even having fun with it, creating a fake federation for it and calling it a new sport. They even went so far that they came up with different categories and scoring criteria for the sport such how long the turban stays in the air and how far it goes before hitting the ground.
The twitter account of the ‘federation’ now has over 30 thousand followers, so it is safe to say that this is becoming a popular sport. Some social media users say Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is the final target in the game of turban tossing.
The phenomenon has forced many clerics to tie their turbans under their chins or use other head coverings to keep them on their heads as they walk in the streets. People are making fun of that too with new fake inventions that can help the clergy keep their turbans in place.
This new addition to the ongoing protests has caused a stir among regime officials and has even made Iraqi Shia cleric and politician Muqtada al-Sadr worried that the trend may spread to his side of the border as a form of protest against Islamic autocracy. He released a statement to condemn the act after many Iraqi young people started to dare their friends on social media to flip some turbans.
Something has changed in Iran with the death of Mahsa Amini. People are less and less afraid of the regime. A common scene on the streets is now a woman who has unveiled in public because she is tremendously courageous and a cleric who has removed his turban out of fear.
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Judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi said that courts will deal firmly with anyone who causes “disruptions or commits crimes” during the ongoing wave of antigovernment protests.
The Judiciary’s statement is ominous for many activists because there are no independent courts in Iran. Both prosecutors and judges answer to the same Judiciary controlled by hardliners. In most political trials also, there is no due process of law, no freedom to choose defense lawyers and little access to case files.
Iran’s Judiciary can frame people for crimes they did not commit, as multiple cases have demonstrated in the past. It can defy what “disruption” means and sentence any protester to death for causing an ill-defined act of disruption.
One of the biggest challenges to Iran's clerical leaders since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the seven-week-old demonstrations have persisted despite a deadly crackdown and severe warnings from security forces.
More than 1,000 people have been indicted in connection with what the government calls "riots".
"Now, the public, even protesters who are not supportive of riots, demand from the judiciary and security institutions to deal with the few people who have caused disturbances in a firm, deterrent and legal manner," judiciary spokesman Masoud Setayeshi claimed.
Another keyword in this statement is “riots”. The regime calls the protesters rioters, without ever having issued a demonstration permit to anyone other than its loyal followers. ‘Reformist’ parties that are not opposed to the Islamic Republic asked for an official permit to gather in September and received no answer.
Anti-government demonstrations erupted in September after the death of a Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini, who had been detained by morality police for allegedly flouting the Islamic Republic's strict dress code imposed on women.
The activist HRANA news agency said that 318 protesters had been killed in the unrest as of Saturday, including 49 minors. Thirty-eight members of the security forces had also been killed, it said.
State media said last month that more than 46 members of the security forces, including police officers, had been killed. Government officials have not provided an estimate of any wider death count.
Center for Human Rights in Iran, a Norway-based human rights organization also expressed concern last week regarding the fate of detained protesters saying, “dozens of them have been charged with the security-related accusation of ‘moharebeh’ (fighting God) and ‘corruption on earth’ which carry the death penalty.”
Iranian leaders have again accused enemies including the United States of fomenting the unrest. More than 220 hardline Iranian lawmakers who urged the judiciary to "deal decisively" with the perpetrators followed the same unsubstantiated argument that protesters are either foreign agents or have been “deceived” by them.
The US State Department once again rejected the accusation on Monday. Spokesperson Ned Price told reporters, “The fact is that Iran – its government is facing problems that are fundamentally of its own making. This is – these protests are so powerful because they are fundamentally not about us. They’re not about any external actor. They are about the legitimate, they’re about the genuine, they’re about the heartfelt aspirations of the Iranian people.”
People from all walks of life have taken part in the protests, with students and women playing a prominent role, waving and burning headscarves.
On the same day when 227 members of Iran’s parliament (Majles) called for death sentence for those arrested during recent protests, Iran's Minister of Tourism and Cultural Heritage, Ezzatollah Zarghami, advocated dialogue between the government and the protesters, highlighting some chaos and indecision in the ruling circles.
Speaking in a meeting with Sharif University students Sunday, Zarghami, a former Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) officer who was once Iran's culture minister and the head of the country's state television, admitted that "Some of the approaches of Iranian officials are wrong but they fear the regime will face a serious danger if they put a step back from their position.”
Referring to the news of young Iranian knocking Shiite clerics' turbans off their heads, Zarghami said these are low-income clerics who are paying for the luxurious lifestyle of rich mullahs.
He insisted that Iran needs reforms and many members of the elite have warned the government about this. "Many others warned about the morality police and said what they were doing was wrong," he said.
Public statements by many officials, such as Zarghami, show they are still stuck in the perception that if hijab enforcement is relaxed, protests will end, but what protesters say in the streets is that they have passed that stage and want the regime to fall.
Zarghami who has been active on social media for years, acknowledged that Iranians no longer trust the official media, and journalist do not write some of what is going on in the society, fearing government reprisal. He admitted that "You cannot say anything [in Iran] if there is no social media."
He criticized officials, without naming anyone, for failing to understand the people and their anger, and said he himself was frustrated because of the way his candidacy in the 2021 presidential election was handled.
In one of the most controversial comments he made in the presence of the students, he said: "When you look at some financial corruption cases, you will see that individuals from all parts of the establishment are involved in it."
But why Zarghami can say these things and get away while other officials do not? Perhaps one of the reasons is that others have no ambition for the future and simply wish to protect what they have. But Zarghami, more likely, still wants to be Iran's next president and having smelled the need for change, he probably thinks the regime will have no choice other than surrendering to some of the protesters' demands. By trying to talk to Sharif University Students who have been in the forefront of the protests, he is touting himself as the man who can make peace with Iran's angry young men and women. But the question is to what extent hardliners in the core of the regime, and students in the forefront of protests, would listen to him.
Reformist cultural activist Hadi Khaniki has likened the need to hold dialogue with the youth to chemotherapy to cure a cancer patient. "It is painful and hard, but it might have some good effect," Khaniki told Etemad Online website. A cancer patient himself, Khaniki said: "The country has a cancer which has its roots among top-level officials and if no one pays any attention to that, the cancer will spread to the other parts of the system.
In another development, Hassan Khomeini, the ambitious grandson of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khmomeini, the fundamentalist founder of the Islamic Republic suggested in an interview Etemad Online that "The government had better begin to listen to the people." He said if the situation develops into a deadlock, our only way out would be to seek democratic solutions. He ignored the fact that he has got his position of wealth and power through non-democratic ways, in a hereditary system.