Iranian women, some not wearing hijabs, walk in a street in Tehran, Iran, in October 2023. File Photo by Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA-EFE
Dec. 1 (UPI) -- A top Iranian official said Sunday that Iran would take steps to reform a new law that adds further restrictions to the country's compulsory dress code, which already long had steep criticism that escalated to civil unrest after the 2022 death of Mahsa Amini.
In 2022, after Amini died in the custody of Iran's morality police for an alleged hijab violation leading to widespread protests, Iran was reported to be shutting down its morality police. At the time, critics blasted the news as disinformation and the morality police quickly returned.
The new law doubling down on the country's dress code was approved by Iran's parliament in September 2023. The Guardian Council, a legal body that has the final say over Iran's laws, gave its approval in September 2024.
"Logical paths have been foreseen for the reformation of bad laws," Mohammad Mehdi Tabatabai, the deputy director of communication and information of the office of President Masoud Pezeshkian, said in a statement Sunday.
"Competent governance will prevent the implementation of laws that are against the general interests of the country and will cause tension and division in the society. We have to be a little more patient. It has been said that success is the result of patience."
The new law, as described by Human Rights Watch, adds steep fines for repeated violations and longer prison sentences for violations of the dress code and also restricts employment and educational opportunities for those deemed to have violated it.
And those who are deemed to have been in a state of alleged "nudity" or even wearing attire that is "socially considered" to be nudity can land offenders a prison sentence of up to 15 years behind bars and a fine of $4,445.
That change comes after, last month, an Iranian woman was arrested for stripping down to her underwear in an apparent anti-hijab protest.
"Rather than responding to the Woman, Life, Freedom movement with fundamental reforms, the autocratic government is trying to silence women with even more repressive dress laws," HRW researcher Nahid Naghshbandi said in a statement. "This law will only breed fierce resistance and defiance among women in and outside Iran."
Other measures of the new law include extending the law to include activities online in digital spaces that promote violating the hijab regulations and expanding the abilities of law enforcement to crack down on such online behavior with artificial intelligence and other measures.
The new law had been submitted as a draft bill by former hardline President Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in May 2024. His successor, Pezeshkian, has been a consistent opponent to the law but is obliged to carry it out regardless of his own wishes under Iranian law.
Iran's state news agency IRNA noted that Tabatabai's comment came after Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, said the issue of hijab is regulated by law and that the government would announce further new provisions later this month.
