There has been a lot of chatter recently about Iran removing the hijab rule, something that has been a central tenet of the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1980 under Article 638 of Iran's Penal Code. However, it’s not as cut and dry as certain Western media and social media are reporting. Let me break it down for you, dear reader.
The reformist (see liberal"ish") Pezeshkian government has, in some instances, gradually eased the enforcement of mandatory hijab rules since coming to power, and that has visibly transformed the urban landscape at least on Twitter. But, it is not straight forward, nothing is, is it?
That official vagueness on rules only became more complicated when Expediency Council member Mohammadreza Bahonar claimed that the mandatory hijab had officially been lifted. “There is no longer a legal obligation to wear the hijab in Iran, and doing so will not entail any fines, penalties, or other legal consequences,” he said in an interview with Khabar Online, which ultimately caused a mini whirlwind inside and outside the country, understandably.
Yet in the absence of any official statement from government authorities or the introduction of a corresponding law, the question remains whether the government has truly backed down from a policy that has served as a defining symbol of the Islamic Republic since its establishment and often touted by clerics and government officials alike as one of the legs that props up the system.
The hijab law faced opposition from its inception in the early years following the Iranian Revolution, but the limited protests at the time soon faded amid the challenges of building a new political system and the outbreak of the eight-year Iran–Iraq War.
Schools, universities, offices, and other workplaces were quickly required to adopt new uniforms or compel women to comply with hijab regulations, which typically included a long coat known as a “manteau” and a headscarf, often a particular type referred to as “maqne’eh”. To enforce the law in public, the Islamic Republic relied on police action. Patrol units were stationed across cities to monitor women’s dress and arrest those deemed in violation of the rules. Women were often forcibly — and sometimes violently — taken to morality police stations, where they had to call family members to bring them “proper” clothes. They were lectured and forced to sign written pledges not to violate the hijab law again.
The standards of hijab also shifted over time, creating confusion among women and giving the morality police broad discretion to detain individuals based on personal judgment. Often, unsuspecting women and teenage girls could be arbitrarily detained at metro stations and bus stops across Tehran and other cities and hauled off in Chinese-built minivans by women and men mockingly called the “fashion police”.
In recent years, the enforcement of the law has been extended to traffic police. Cars carrying women without headscarves were initially issued a text-message warning, and upon a second violation, were confiscated. Detection reportedly relied on both public reports and traffic surveillance cameras. At this stage of the law, several hundred Iranian women a year were hauled in front of courts and their families forced to pay hundreds of dollars in fines for not abiding by the law.
The controversy reached its peak in 2022 during the hardline former Raisi administration, when a young woman, Mahsa Amini, died in the custody of the morality police. Her death sparked widespread and deadly protests across the country that lasted for months, shaking the system and putting pressure on the clerical establishment to change. The Raisi administration initially refused to back down from its position; instead, it cracked down on the protests, arrested journalists and introduced a new measure — the “Hijab and Chastity Law” — to regulate Islamic dress enforcement and replace arrests with fines and other forms of punishment.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei also addressed the issue in April 2023, declaring that disregard for hijab was both religiously and politically forbidden – a statement he has not contradicted since. Meanwhile, enforcement continued in the form of verbal advice and vehicle confiscations, even as more women openly defied the law on the street and in public events.
Although the Hijab and Chastity Law was passed by parliament, it was never officially promulgated — until President Masoud Pezeshkian announced that it had been blocked by the Supreme National Security Council. Following that announcement, both police enforcement and advisory operations, as well as vehicle confiscations, were gradually discontinued.
Today, women are often seen without headscarves or with scarves loosely draped over their shoulders. For many, the manteau has been replaced by short blouses. A few go further, wearing short sleeves or trousers and skirts below the knee.
Nevertheless, women are still required to wear the manteau and maqne’eh in schools, universities, and offices. Photos for ID cards and passports must still show the hair fully covered, and women on television, in films, advertisements, and billboards are still obliged to observe hijab.
Meanwhile, hardline officials continue to raise the issue periodically, criticising the government for inaction. Bahonar has come under fierce attack from ultra-hardline lawmakers who accuse him of promoting nudity and defending what they call “the savage, naked Western system.” Some have invoked Khamenei’s statements to stress that there will be no retreat on the issue.
The Supreme Leader’s hardline newspaper of choice and effective voice of the system Kayhan wrote on October 9: “It is regrettable that we observe the likes of Mr Bahonar, either due to severe poverty in the realm of religious knowledge or owing to political motives, have taken the dangerous path of repeating the "old" and rotten ideas of the Westernised current, and knowingly or unknowingly are taking steps to assist the enemy's strategic project in opposing the Islamic hijab.”
This writer has seen photos that have circulated on social media showing vans belonging to “volunteer groups” who claim to promote hijab, linking their efforts to “martyrs” who, they say, gave their lives to protect women’s hijab, in what appears to be a fight back from elements supportive of Kayhan’s viewpoint. These groups are extra-judicial and not officially aligned with the state, at least not those in control of the actual government of Pezeshkian, which raises another major fundamental issue for the current administration about authority and where it sits.
What we can define with the current facts makes it clear that the current situation is not an abolishment of the compulsory hijab, but rather a suspension, “a pause until further notice,” although one that stands as a tangible outcome of the 2022 protests. There is also the very Persian way of the non-finite way of letting go. This is also a possibility, and the vans going around are just part of the motions. For those who don’t understand what this means, things just fade out without a specific announcement, which is how things work in Tehran sometimes.
The absence of any statement from Khamenei’s office — who holds the final say in all matters of state — is itself proof that the law remains in place, though currently dormant.
The Supreme Leader’s office, the Kayhan newspaper, and the representative of Khameni across the country have all in recent hours urged women to wear “good hijab” as a sign of chastity, although it is more of an urge currently rather than an diktat. The softly-softly approach comes as Tehran faces intense growing international pressure over its nuclear and missile programmes and as gold and the dollar reach all-time highs.
In June, Iran was engaged in a 12-day war with Israel and the United States. Authorities are cognizant that the last round of protests were whipped up by enemies, including the former Pahlavi royal family which are backed by Israel, according to a previous Haaretz article. The last thing Iranian authorities want is a repeat of the Mahsa Amini protests and are quite clearly willing to avoid a repeat of that all-out street violence. Social media apps were massively throttled in the 2022 protests and people have bigger problems currently including the collapsing rial.
Negotiations with the West are always on the verge of failure, and international sanctions — previously lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal — have been reimposed with gusto, making matters worse on a macro level for many in the country. Many businesses are operating at half capacity or have gone bankrupt, while prices soar daily and people continue to exit the country looking for a better deal elsewhere.
So, no. The government has not officially abolished the hijab law, many hope that the day will come, many do not, some are now actively trying to pull back on the growth in civil liberties granted by the current administration. Time will tell.