Iran’s new president has mentioned that morality police will not “hassle” girls over the sporting of the obligatory hijab headband, days after the UN warned girls have been nonetheless being violently punished for breaking the strict gown code.
Masoud Pezeshkian’s feedback got here on the second anniversary of the demise in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for allegedly not sporting the hijab correctly, sparking nationwide protests.
The UN final week mentioned Iran’s authorities had “intensified efforts” since that interval to suppress girls’s rights and crush any final vestiges of activism.
However on Monday, Pezeshkian mentioned that the regime’s morality police ought to not be confronting girls on the road.
Pezeshkian, who grew to become president after his predecessor died in a helicopter crash, is seen as a probably reformist chief.
He was responding to questions from a feminine reporter who mentioned she had taken detours en path to the press convention to keep away from police vans. She was sporting her head scarf loosely with some hair exhibiting.
When requested by Pezeshkian if the police have been nonetheless on the streets she confirmed that was the case.
In response he mentioned: “The morality police weren’t alleged to confront [women]. I’ll comply with up so they do not hassle [them]”.
His feedback have been broadcast reside on main state TV networks, together with rolling information channel IRINN. The clip of the dialog with the feminine journalist has since gone viral on-line.
It was Pezeshkian’s first press convention since coming into workplace in July, changing the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi.
Throughout his election marketing campaign he pledged to oppose police patrols imposing the obligatory hijab headband. He has additionally vowed to ease a number of the nation’s long-standing web controls.
Iran stepped up surveillance of social media following the nationwide women-led anti-establishment protests in 2022.
Indicators of a probably extra relaxed angle to the nation’s strict gown code for ladies have been current at Pezeshkian’s press convention on Monday, the place some feminine journalists wore unfastened head coverings.
This was a noticeable departure from earlier official occasions the place feminine journalists are required to seem in full hijab, BBC Monitoring reported.
However the UN’s newest fact-finding mission within the nation says girls “nonetheless reside in a system that relegates them to second class residents”.
In its report released last week, the UN mentioned: “State authorities have expanded repressive measures and insurance policies to additional deprive girls and women of their elementary rights.”
It famous the federal government had “enhanced surveillance of hijab compliance” in each private and non-private environments whereas additionally endorsing an escalation in violence in punishing girls and women who break the foundations.
“Safety forces have additional escalated pre-existing patterns of bodily violence, together with beating, kicking, and slapping girls and women who’re perceived as failing to adjust to the obligatory hijab legal guidelines and rules,” the UN mentioned.
It mentioned authorities had additionally more and more invoked the usage of the demise penalty towards girls activists and “scaled up” executions of those that had expressed solidarity with the 2022 protests often known as the Girl, Life, Freedom motion.
The UN mission additionally famous {that a} “Hijab and Chastity” invoice was within the remaining levels of approval earlier than Iran’s Guardian Council and may very well be finalised imminently.
“The Invoice supplies for harsher penalties for ladies who don’t put on the obligatory hijab, together with exorbitant monetary fines, longer jail sentences, restrictions on work and academic alternatives, and bans on journey,” the UN investigators mentioned.