Iranian authorities have said they will revise a decades-old law requiring women to cover their heads. more than two months of protests related to the dress code🇧🇷
“Both the parliament and the court are working [on the issue]Iran’s Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said on Saturday whether the law needs any changes.
He did not say what the two mainly conservative-held bodies might change in the law, as quoted by the Iranian news agency.
The prosecutor general said that the investigative team met with the parliament’s culture commission on Wednesday and “will see the results in a week or two.”
the president Ibrahim Raisi said on Saturday that Iran’s republican and Islamic foundations have been strengthened in accordance with the constitution.
“But there are ways to implement the constitution that can be flexible,” he said in televised comments.
The protests began on September 16 after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin, who was arrested by the morality police for allegedly violating Sharia law.
In the following weeks, demonstrators burned headscarves and chanted anti-government slogans. After Amin’s death, the number of women who don’t wear the headscarf is increasing, especially in the trendy north of Tehran.
The hijab became mandatory for all women in Iran in April 1983, four years after the Islamic Revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy.
It remains a sensitive issue in a country where conservatives insist it should be compulsory and reformers want to leave it to individual choice.
In July of this year, the ultra-conservative Raisi called to “mobilize all government agencies to enforce the hijab law.”
In September, Iran’s main reformist party called for the repeal of the mandatory hijab law.
The Islamic People’s Union Party of Iran, formed by relatives of former reformist President Mohammad Khatami, demanded on Saturday that the authorities “develop legal elements that pave the way for the repeal of the mandatory hijab law.”
The opposition group also called on the Islamic Republic to “officially declare the end of the morality police” and “allow peaceful demonstrations”.
Iran accuses arch-enemies and allies of the United States, including Britain, Israel and Kurdish groups based outside the country, of fomenting what the government calls “riots.”
Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based non-governmental organization, said on Tuesday that “at least 448 people have been killed by security forces in ongoing nationwide protests”.
UN rights commissioner Volker Türk said that 14,000 people, including children, were arrested during the suppression of protests last week.
The arrest campaign has ensnared athletes, celebrities and journalists.
According to the reformist “Sharq” newspaper, among the latest people to be arrested is the movie star Mitra Hajjar, who was detained at his home on Saturday.
