Iran's New Hijab Bill Faces Strong Public Rejection: 84 Percent Of The Over 12,000 Respondents Oppose Mandatory Dress Code
New Age
Islam News Bureau
27 October 2023
·
Afghanistan
Girls Education Activist Matiullah Wesa Released By Taliban After Seven Months
In Jail
·
Kabul Beauticians
Struggle And Consider Migration Amid Salon Shutdown
·
Women in
Kabul Hold Gathering in Support of Palestinians, Urging Islamic Nations To Take
Action Against Israel
·
Iran's New
Hijab Bill Faces Strong Public Rejection: 84 Percent Of The Over 12,000
Respondents Oppose Mandatory Dress Code
·
Muslim
Mother Attacked By Stranger In UK For ‘Wearing A Hijab’
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-hijab-bill-dress-code/d/130988
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Iran's New Hijab Bill Faces Strong
Public Rejection: 84 Percent Of The Over 12,000 Respondents Oppose Mandatory
Dress Code
Iranian
women walk on a street during the revival of morality police in Tehran, July
16, 2023.
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27 October 2023
Maryam Sinaee
The reformist Shargh daily in Iran
reported that 84 percent of the over 12,000 respondents to its poll on hijab
are opposed to mandatory dress code and headscarves.
The online poll, completed over a period
of one month, was conducted after lawmakers, mostly affiliated to the
ultra-hardliner Paydari Party, ratified a bill in September that they have
named "Protection of Family Through Promotion of Hijab and Chastity Culture".
The legislation, originally prepared by
the government and later modified by the parliament’s hardliners, proposed
various penalties including heavy cash fines for women who do not abide by the
prescribed dress code of the Islamic Republic. This dress code consists of a
headscarf covering all hair and the shoulders, a loose long tunic with long
sleeves, and trousers that cover the legs to below the ankles.
The constitutionally mandated 12-member
Guardian Council which, among other things, has the final say in legislation,
rejected the bill on Tuesday in a surprising move and asked the parliament to
amend it.
The Council has found several formal
shortcomings in the text including vagueness of some of the terms used in it,
such as a term translatable as “unchastity” or “corruptness”.
The Council’s rejection of the proposed
hijab law has nothing to do with people’s objection to it, Asieh Amini, a
Norway-based women’s rights activist, told Iran International. According to
Amini, the reason for the Council’s rejection is based on the hardliners’ wish
to make the legislation as watertight as possible.
Others believe the Guardian Council may
have been apprehensive about increasing the people’s discontent with the regime
before the upcoming parliamentary elections in March. The elections four years
ago had the lowest participation rate in the four-decade history of the Islamic
Republic.
“The outcome of this bill will be
nothing other than increasing people’s discontent, decline [of belief] in
hijab, and deepening of the rift between the government and the people,”
conservative journalist Behrouz Mirzaei-Shirmard tweeted before the Council’s
rejection of the bill. He said he hoped “those in the system who are wise and
care” would stop the bill, which “is in contradiction with citizen’s rights”
from being approved.
In the past few months, hardliners have
tried to impose strict hijab rules in government offices, schools and
universities, hospitals and other public places. Nevertheless, many women are
defying the hijab rules.
For instance, Habib Ilbeigi, the
director of the supervision department of the Islamic Guidance Ministry’s
Cinema Organization, said that actresses who have defied hijab standards will
be banned from acting.
The department has released a list of banned
actresses that includes many popular actresses including Baran Kowsari,
Vishka Asayesh, Taraneh Alidoosti, Katayoun Riahi, Pantea Bahram, Hengameh Ghaziani
and Pegah Ahangarani.
The organization is mandated with the
approval of public screening and streaming of all films produced in Iran, and
very often implements censorship by rejecting scripts or modifying them.
Sources in Iran say in many places,
wearing the hijab now is stranger than not wearing it, as the number of women
wearing ordinary clothes and no headscarf has hugely increased.
Source: iranintl.com
https://www.iranintl.com/en/202310268815
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Afghanistan Girls Education Activist
Matiullah Wesa Released By Taliban After Seven Months In Jail
FILE -
Matiullah Wesa, a girls’ education advocate, reads to students in the open area
in Spin Boldak district in the southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan on May
21, 2022. The Taliban have freed the Afghan activist who campaigned for the
education of girls, a local nonprofit organization said Thursday, Oct. 26,
2023. Wesa was arrested seven months ago and spent 215 days in prison,
according to the group, Pen Path. (AP Photo/Siddiqullah Khan)
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26 Oct 2023
An Afghan rights campaigner who
advocated for girls’ inclusion in education has been released by Taliban
authorities after seven months in jail.
MatiullahWesa, who travelled the country
campaigning for girls to have access to education, was arrested in March for
“propaganda against the government”.
He was released on Thursday and was “on
his way home”, his brother told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
A spokesperson for the Taliban
administration confirmed Wesa’s release.
The UN’s top expert on human rights in
Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, welcomed Wesa’s release but highlighted the
plight of hundreds of other activists targeted by the Taliban.
“I welcome the release of MatiullahWesa
and call for the immediate & unconditional release of all #Afghanistan
human rights defenders who are arbitrarily detained for standing up for their
own rights & the human rights of others,” he wrote on the social media
platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
Wesa, the founder of the nonprofit
organisation Pen Path, had made promoting access to education his mission for
more than a decade, visiting rural villages to help revive schools shuttered by
violence and to open libraries.
Wesa pledged to continue these efforts
after the Taliban took over Kabul in 2021 and enforced harsh restrictions on
girls and women, including banning them from schools, parks and gyms and
pushing them out of government jobs.
Wesa’s arrest triggered protests from
the United Nations and international rights groups, which warned that the
Taliban was increasingly cracking down on “peaceful activism” in support of
women’s freedoms.
“The Taliban first started with abusing,
abducting and detaining women protesters,” Sahar Fetrat, Afghan researcher with
the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera at the time.
“Now they have started to intimidate and abuse men for joining peaceful
activism.”
“The Taliban fear Afghan men and women
standing together and fighting for a better Afghanistan,” Fetrat said.
Afghanistan ranked last out of 177
countries in a report released on Tuesday by the Georgetown Institute for
Peace, Women and Security that gauges women’s inclusion, justice and security
in society.
Erosion of press freedoms
Wesa’s release comes shortly after the
release of another high-profile detainee – French-Afghan journalist
MortazaBehboudi.
Behboudi, who had spent nine months in
jail on suspicion of espionage for providing “illegal support to foreigners”,
decried the worsening climate for journalists in Afghanistan.
“Everything is censored these days,”
Behboudi said. “If I take a photo on the street, I risk being arrested. … There
is no longer freedom of expression. There is no longer freedom of the press in
Afghanistan.”
Source: aljazeera.com
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/26/afghan-girls-rights-activist-matiulah-wesa-freed-by-taliban
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Kabul beauticians struggle and consider
migration amid Salon shutdown
October 26, 2023
Fidel Rahmati
A female representative of beauticians
in Kabul reveals that women are experiencing severe economic hardships
following the shutdown of beauty salons and the ban on beauticians’ work
imposed by the interim government. Many are now considering the option of
migrating to seek better opportunities.
Raha Hassani, a beautician and one of
the female representatives of beauticians in Kabul, told the Khaama Press News
Agency that after the order to close the doors of beauty salons, women face
numerous challenges, including financial difficulties, security concerns, and
migration issues.
Raha, who has moved her salon equipment
to her home, says that working with clients at home has exposed them to
security challenges.
She adds, “I’ve relocated my salon to my
home. We have to find a way to earn a living for our children, but the problem
is that accommodating clients at home is difficult, and we face security
threats.”
Ms. Raha continues to explain that more
than 3,000 active female beauticians in Kabul City are now grappling with
economic difficulties and considering migration.
Raha Hassani points out a woman forced
to sell makeup products due to financial challenges.
She continued, “One of our colleagues
had taken a loan of over two thousand dollars a few months ago and had set up a
beauty salon just before the order to close the salons was issued. Now, she
doesn’t know how to repay her loans and has been forced to sell makeup
products.”
In July of this year, the Taliban
leadership issued an order that shut down all beauty salons in the country,
resulting in the loss of jobs for around 60,000 female beauticians.
The United Nations had called on the
Taliban administration in response to this action to rescind their order as the
closure of women’s beauty salons hurts women’s economic prospects.
The representative of women beauticians
in Kabul city says that the interim administration of the Taliban has
ostracized them from society and confined them to dark corners of their homes.
She adds, “They have cut off our art and livelihood, and they have created a
situation where we now feel like immigrants and strangers in our own country.”
One of the primary reasons cited by the
Taliban authorities for closing the beauty salons is excessive spending on
wedding celebrations. However, female beauticians do not consider this
government decision fair or justified.
In the past two years, the Taliban
administration has issued approximately 50 restrictive orders regarding women’s
lives in Afghanistan, including prohibiting girls’ education and banning women
from government and non-governmental offices.
Source: khaama.com
https://www.khaama.com/kabul-beauticians-struggle-and-consider-migration-amid-salon-shutdown/
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Women in Kabul Hold Gathering in Support
of Palestinians, Urging Islamic Nations To Take Action Against Israel
October 26, 2023
NaweedSamadi
In reaction to Israel's airstrikes on
Gaza, a group of women in Kabul in support of the Palestinians, urged the Islamic
nations to take action against Israel.
They urged international institutions to
take action to safeguard women and children in Palestine, saying the ongoing
Israeli bombardment on Gaza is a breach of international law and human rights.
"Where is the UN when it comes to
discussing humanity and human rights? Why doesn't anybody try to help the
Palestinian people, or the mothers and sisters whose children are killed
unfairly? Why doesn't anyone speak out for them?” said Somaia Mohammadi, a
protester.
"The UN must defend the rights of
women, in every Islamic or non-Muslim countries. There are many Islamic
countries, how come today our Palestine is bearing the brunt of this bloody
war?" asked Anjama, a protester.
"Don't those children have the
right to life and have freedom? Aren't they human that someone should help
them?" said HasibaRasooli, another protester.
Source: tolonews.com
https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-185734
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Muslim Mother Attacked By Stranger In UK
For ‘Wearing A Hijab’
October 26, 2023
LONDON: A Muslim mother in the UK was
attacked by a stranger with a concrete slab “because she was wearing a hijab,”
her husband told The Independent.
CCTV footage of the incident in Dewsbury
on Wednesday shows a hooded man approaching the woman carrying a large slab of
concrete he had found nearby.
After closing the distance, he throws
the concrete at the women’s head. She was struck despite seeing her attacker
approach at the last second.
The victim was waiting outside a
takeaway shop ahead of a job interview, while her husband, 40-year-old Eid
Karimi, was inside the shop buying food for his wife.
Karimi later chased down the attacker
along with other pedestrians and handed the man over to police.
He said that his wife was targeted
because she was wearing a hijab.
“I went inside (the shop) to get food
and she chose to wait outside in the rain because she had an umbrella.
“Suddenly I saw people running around
and this guy. He tried to run but I ran after him and grabbed him. He was
shouting: ‘Don’t call the police, I won’t do it again.’
“We were holding him down for the police
to arrive. He knew he was in trouble.
“She was wearing a hijab — that’s why
she was chosen. There were 50-60 people there but she was the one attacked from
behind.”
West Yorkshire Police said that the man
was detained, but refused to comment on whether the case was being treated as a
hate crime.
Karimi added that he “wants the police
to take this seriously.”
He said: “She didn’t suffer any broken
bones or need stitches but I worry so much about her. She is very shocked. He
didn’t say anything to her, we didn’t know him and we have never seen him
before.
“She came back from hospital and
couldn’t sleep all last night. She is very stressed.”
The attack comes as the UK records a
surge in Islamophobic offenses amid the outbreak of violence in Gaza.
In October, Islamophobic offenses in
London rose 140 percent compared with the same period last year.
Source: arabnews.com
https://www.arabnews.com/node/2397991/world
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/iran-hijab-bill-dress-code/d/130988