On Sunday, 195 members of the Iranian parliament signed a letter warning moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to get serious about confronting women failing to properly observe modest Islamic covering - or hijab - or else, the letter reads, Iranian society will face “irreversible consequences” from a western cultural onslaught seeking to “change the Iranian people’s way of life vis-à-vis hijab and chastity.” For weeks state TV has drawn attention to the hijab in televised debates, and pro-hijab posters likening badly veiled women to unwrapped candy bars preyed on by flies made the rounds on social networks. A popular Facebook page run by an Iranian expat journalist hosting photos Iranian women have furtively snapped of themselves sans-headscarf has caused a conservative uproar. It intensified when in a provocative speech, Rouhani asked hardliners to stop “interfering in people’s lives.” On the anniversary of his election, he slammed opponents who still “think we’re living in the Stone Age.” This is not new. Even before his election in a largely forgotten interview with the youth magazine Chelcheragh, then presidential hopeful Rouhani hinted that even those who don’t observe the Islamic veil in the “desired way” can be good people. “Before the revolution, many women in our society did not wear the hijab - but were they not virtuous humans?” On the campaign trail, Rouhani vowed to rein in the morality police, an organ the president does not directly control. But attempts to shuffle police commanders and move morality police under the jurisdiction of his own interior ministry have been defeated by more powerful conservative forces in the establishment.
Posted on: Fri, 20 Jun 2014 08:44:09 +0000
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