The face of Tehran has been undergoing an extraordinary transformation in recent months, some neighbourhoods seeming to channel Beirut as much as the capital of the Islamic Republic where headscarves — or hijabs — have been mandatory for women for 45 years.
Less than three years after the brutal crackdown on the protests that followed the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody for an alleged dress code violation, a growing number of women are daring to bare their heads in public.
They’re not a majority, but on any given day in north Tehran’s popular Tajrish Square, you’ll find a mixture of women with and without headscarves. Some don’t even wear them around their necks anymore, where they could be pulled up quickly if the decision to go bare-headed is challenged.
“We young people have decided to live the way we like,” said Laylah, a 30-year-old self-employed woman out shopping with her mother. The authorities “need to understand that we want to be free, comfortable and liberated.”
Like all the women interviewed in this story who were not wearing a headscarf, Laylah did not provide her last name for fear of repercussions for defying her country’s hijab laws.
A divided perspective on change
Some analysts believe the Woman, Life, Freedom protest movement sparked by Amini’s death in 2022 is here to stay. That the number of women — young and old — defying the hijab law is so great the regime will be unable to reverse it.
Others say Iran’s ruling clerics are allowing what’s happening to continue because it suits their purposes at this time, noting that stories like this one, which highlight the seemingly dramatic change on the streets, actually distract from the draconian and often sinister ways the state continues to punish women who disobey.
“I think that the authorities, frankly, are getting more clever about how they carry out their reprisals,” said Nassim Papayianni, a senior Iran campaigner with Amnesty International based in London.
The white vans used by Iran’s controversial morality police are still visible on the streets of Tehran. But on a recent — and rare — reporting trip to the city, our crew didn’t witness police make any arrests or bully those women not wearing the hijab.
“What they’re doing is just trying to adapt in a system that they think won’t draw as much international attention,” Papayianni said.
“I think they know if they arrest women’s rights defenders or women and girls for defying compulsory veiling that there will be a lot of international attention on that.”
The methods regularly used by authorities to enforce a dress code in place since just after the 1979 Islamic Revolution range from financial penalties to lashings or jail terms.
And just because women are choosing to defy the law doesn’t mean they are not afraid of repercussions.
“I am afraid; I have concerns,” said Saha, a 33-year-old human resources worker wearing her long curly hair uncovered while out in public. “But I’m doing this because I want [any future child of mine] not to have the same fear as I do,” she said, speaking in Farsi.
The feeling on the street is different now, she said, because more men are supporting women in these actions — as are older generations.
“My mother is quite religious,” she said. “She observes the hijab dress code. But at a protest she was standing next to me.”
Saha said she’d already been arrested once, after being photographed driving her car while not wearing a headscarf.
New surveillance techniques
Surveillance methods employed by state security forces are growing increasingly sophisticated.
A United Nations report released in March found that drones, facial recognition technology and security cameras were being employed to monitor women’s compliance.
There is also an app the public can apply to the police to use that allows approved citizens to report on women deemed to be flouting the rules, said the report, authored by the Independent International Fact-finding Mission on the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The same body determined in 2024 that the state was responsible for the “physical violence” that led to Amini’s death in 2022.
There are other societal pressures at play. Many restaurants in Tehran put up signs requesting that women comply with headscarf rules, reminding customers that the restaurant could be closed down if women refused.
“They’re trying to pull in, you know, private business owners to essentially police women’s bodies,” said Amnesty’s Papayianni.
One woman who was happy to talk to a foreign news crew off the record said she couldn’t have her picture taken without a headscarf for fear it would ruin her chances for a job in the public school system.
Another woman said she didn’t want any photos taken that “the mullahs” — the Islamic clergy leaders — could use to harass her.
Stiffer penalties
Last fall, Iran’s parliament approved a new hijab and chastity law that would impose even tougher punishments on women violating dress codes: steeper fines and prison sentences of up to 15 years.
So far, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has shied away from putting the legislation forward with his signature.
He campaigned for last year’s presidential election with promises to ease restrictions on women.
But conservative hardliners close to Iran’s ultimate power, the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have been pushing for the legislation to be implemented.
“Unfortunately [unveiled women] have been influenced by Western culture,” said Fatemeh Hojat, a 43-year-old mother wearing a full chador.
“And the fact that the hijab law is not implemented properly in the country has exacerbated this issue,” she said.
Members of Canada’s largest Iranian community react to the ongoing violence in Iran as security forces intensify their crackdown. The latest reports say at least 13 people have been killed in the Kurdish region of Iran as security forces use live ammunition to quell anti-government demonstrations that started following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September.
The undercurrent of fear that many of the women ignoring the hijab laws say they still carry with them could suggest a calm before the proverbial storm.
Some analysts say the regime isn’t cracking down harder on these daily acts of defiance because, right now, it can’t afford the mass protests that might spark.
Many of Iran’s regional allies or proxies have suffered hits over the past year, just as Washington is exerting pressure on Iran in pursuit of a nuclear agreement to its liking.
But there’s also no doubt that the actions of an increasing number of Iranian women are seen as a challenge to Iran’s theocracy.
And periods of perceived reform or liberalism in the past have often been met with violent crackdowns.
Laylah from Tajrish Square admits it’s a possibility.
“Good things will happen again,” she said. “If they want to take away our freedom, we will try again to win freedom […] and to live the way we want to live.”
