By Dr Azar Sepehr
The Iranian regime is stepping up its repression of women, with parliament enacting in December the ‘Modesty and Hijab law,’ tightening restrictions on women’s dress. This move, condemned by legal experts and activists, comes two years after the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement challenged the regime’s legitimacy. As economic and social crises deepen, the regime faces mounting popular resistance, from women, workers and retirees. The ‘No to Executions’ campaign has emerged, calling for an end to the death penalty and highlighting the plight of political prisoners.
At the beginning of December 2024, the parliament enacted the ‘Modesty and Hijab law’ which tightens the laws on women’s Islamic dress more strictly than before. This is two years after the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’ movement challenged the regime more emphatically than in the previous uprisings. In the movement largely led by women, the people of Iran, challenged the regime’s legitimacy and demanded an end to dictatorship and the regime’s constant humiliation and persecution of women in the urban space. The law has been approved by the Guardian Council, and awaits the signature of the president, Masoud Pezeshkian. Legal experts as well as most political, civil and trade union activists, men and women, have condemned this law in a nationwide chorus of condemnation which is still ongoing.
More than 140 Iranian journalists published a joint statement on 6th December, expressing their “emphatic” opposition to the implementation of this law, which they called a “massive violation of the fundamental rights of citizens” and declared that its sections on the “determination of punishments” is in clear contradiction with legal principles such as “proportionality of crime and punishment, the principle of the presumption of innocence, human dignity and the “prohibition of discrimination”. In this law, journalists have been directly threatened with censorship and criminalization regarding the pursuit of issues related to hijab, which conflicts with Article 24 of the Constitution. The statement adds: Therefore, we journalists, fulfilling our duty to provide information, while emphasizing the inhumanity of this law, declare our strong opposition to its implementation. Society cannot bear any more pressure!’
This is in conditions when for the last 11 years various attempts at getting the parliament to consider the bill: “Ensuring Women’s Security in Iran” has been postponed for various excuses, one major obstacle being that the regime does not believe that violence against women is worthy of consideration. More than 140 Iranian journalists published a joint statement on 6th December, expressing their “emphatic” opposition to the implementation of this law, which they called a “massive violation of the fundamental rights of citizens” and declared that its sections on the “determination of punishments” is in clear contradiction with legal principles such as “proportionality of crime and punishment, the principle of the presumption of innocence, human dignity and the “prohibition of discrimination”.
In this law, journalists have been directly threatened with censorship and criminalization regarding the pursuit of issues related to hijab, which conflicts with Article 24 of the Constitution. The statement adds: Therefore, we journalists, fulfilling our duty to provide information, while emphasizing the inhumanity of this law, declare our strong opposition to its implementation. Society cannot bear any more pressure!’
The fact is that the regime is mired in growing economic and social crises that it cannot solve. In these conditions, desperate and unable to contain women’s civil resistance and efforts to maintain the campaign‘s achievements, and alongside it, the continuation and spread of workers’ strikes and protests by retirees, workers, teachers and nurses, the regime tries to increase the pressure domestically, perversely taking advantage of regional tensions in a bid to intensify repression and prolong its rule.
The regime continues to oversee the country’s economic and environmental collapse, exponential increase in poverty, the breakdown of the cultural fabric of the society, constant assault on women’s human rights, and the denial of people’s democratic and civil rights.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of executions after the Woman, Life, Freedom movement, which started in September 2022 following the killing of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police.
There are thousands of political prisoners. The women in the prisons have continued to take part in various forms of protest inside the prisons and at times have become the voice of women’s protests, generally. The reports from the prisons about personal accounts of rape and torture, and hunger strikes abound. In the meanme, the repression of the families of prisoners or those who have been killed by the regime intensifies in order to silence them. The families of Nika Shakarami, the 16-year-old girl who was brutally assaulted and murdered in the early days of the ‘Woman, Life, Freedom’, is one of many.
One of our urgent tasks is to raise awareness and to thwart the plan to execute political prisoners in large numbers. Among women prisoners, at least two face the threat of execution at present: Varisheh Moradi and Pakhshan Azizi. The ‘No to Executions’ campaign has emerged as the new resistance movement, calling for an end to all executions.
No to War! Victory to the struggle of Iranian People for Equality, Peace, and Social Justice!
Dr Sepehr is the representative of the Democratic Organisation of Iranian Women (DOIW) in the UK.
Come and hear Dr Azar Sepehr speak at Liberation’s meeting in the Westminster parliament on May 5, 2025. She will be joining an all-women panel also including speakers from Iraq, Palestine and Sudan and chaired by Baroness Christine Blower. Find out more and register here: https://forms.gle/SFcWBUMLZ8v9qDPT6
This article first appeared in the bulletin of CODIR, which supports the campaign for peace, human and democratic rights in Iran. CODIR is a long-time affiliate of Liberation.
The views expressed in the articles published on this website do not necessarily represent those of Liberation.
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