‘Reformist’ Politicians Lambast Iran’s Hijab Crackdown

Several prominent ‘reformist’ figures have lambasted the Iranian government’s new wave of crackdown on women defying mandatory hijab.

Leader of the Reformist Front party Azar Mansouri urged the government to end the “devastating conflict” over compulsory hijab on Thursday.

“Before the death of Mahsa [Amini] and the protests that followed, we time and again demanded that the morality police be dismantled. But just at a time when national solidarity is needed more than ever, the same ugly scenes are seen with more intensity and violence against Iranian women and girls,” she wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Reformist commentator Abbas Abdi rejected the government’s harsh measures as violating “the law and morality,” further warning that the compulsory hijab policy will backfire. “If they are doing this to make people disgusted with hijab and Islam, they will definitely succeed because this will have no other achievement,” he stated.

In a video message released on Thursday, Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a senior aide to former president Mohammad Khatami, criticized the “street offensive” against Iranian women to enforce hijab laws. Referring to the threats of possible Israeli retaliation against Iran’s recent attacks and the division in the Iranian society over hijab laws, Abtahi said, “According to political conventions, you need to think about internal unity during wartime.”

On Saturday, Iran's police initiated a plan to force unveiled women to adhere to the hijab laws, resorting to violence against detainees and people who attempted to intervene to prevent women's arrests.

One of the last victims of the Iranian regime’s repressive hijab policy was Armita Geravand, a sixteen-year-old girl. She died on October 28, 2023 after about a month in coma for brain damage she suffered during a violent encounter with hijab enforcers deployed at Tehran’s subway stations.