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Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

Lakewood Times

    Iranian Women Gain Traction After String of Protests

    Iranian+Women+Gain+Traction+After+String+of+Protests

    When it is a choice, a hijab represents a strong bond to Allah. A means of following the modesty valued by the state of Islam and de-emphasizes a female’s physical beauty, thus controlling the perception of her outside of her family. In free countries, it is a choice a Muslim woman may go on with or without the hijab.

     

    This is not how it is in Iran. They enforce strict modesty laws that spells arrest for women who violate them. They can be jailed for months over one incident. It has been this way since their 1979 revolution Yet that is just what they do. The hash tag going around, White Wednesdays and also the Girls of Revolution Street (other translations say: Girls of Enghelab Street).

     

    From this movement, two women have been imprisoned. The first woman was nameless, photo simply circulating after her arrest on December 27th, 2017. It was tagged with the hash tag #where_is_she

     

    Though later Iranian human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh released her name. The woman was identified as Vida Movahed, a thirty-one-year-old woman who is the mother of a twenty-month-old daughter. Officers dressed in street clothes after she got up on a telecoms box, waving her hijab on a stick and making a speech, arrested her.

     

    Ms. Sotudeh, who had been detained years before for her attempts to assist an Iranian-Swedish individual during a citizenship dispute, later took to Facebook and announced that Movahed had been released. Sotudeh also later announced publicly that no legal back lash should be taken against and to keep “hands off of her” and punctuated with “please.”

     

    Though Movahed was not the first and certainly is not the last woman to do this form of protest. Following her were nine other women. Most of their fates were unknown, but it is know that one woman has been arrest. She was identified was Narguess Hosseini, and she stood at the same place as Vida Movahed, holding a up a white scarf as well.

     

    This is not the first time of action within Iranian women against this forced covering. In fact, the first protests began days after the compulsory hijab rule was enacted. It drew 100,000 women to march. It has been almost forty years and women are still fighting for something as trivial as to choose if they cover their head or not.

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