The Iranian Law – Women Detained For Failing to Cover Themselves in Public

After a man attacked them with yogurt, two Iranian women were detained for failing to cover their hair. Iranian authorities have detained two women after they were beaten with yogurt, ostensibly for not covering up in public.

In the video that went viral, a man approaches two female clients and starts conversing with them. He then furiously throws what looks to be a carton of yogurt over the heads after grabbing it from a shelf. According to Iran’s court, the two women were imprisoned because it is against the law to display one’s hair in Iran.

Also, the individual was detained for upsetting the peace, it said. The arrests come after months of demonstrations calling for an end to the requirement that women wear the hijab (headscarf). The video shows the women waiting for a staff member to serve them at the shop. Then, a man who appears to be passing by approaches them.

He speaks, then repeatedly yogurt attacks them. The shopkeeper then forces the assailant outside of the establishment.

The three were later arrested when arrest warrants were obtained, according to the judiciary’s Mizan news agency.

It further stated that “appropriate notifications” had been sent to the shop owner to ensure legal compliance. Although it is against the law for Iranian women to not wear headscarves in public, many do so in major cities. Dissension in Iranian society has been sparked by anger and discontent with the legislation.

After the murder of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman imprisoned by moral police in Tehran for reportedly donning her hijab “incorrectly,” rebellion broke throughout the Islamic Republic in September.

A UN expert has cautioned that since protests started last year, Iranian authorities have engaged in acts that may constitute crimes against humanity.

The scale and seriousness of the alleged cases of murder, detention, forced abduction, torture, rape, and persecution, according to special rapporteur Javaid Rehman, disturbed him.

He demanded that an independent fact-finding team look into them. Iran claimed that the accusations were untrue. Following the death in detention of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who had been arrested by morality police in Tehran for reportedly wearing her hijab “improperly,” protests erupted across the Islamic Republic in September.

Iran’s official coroner put her death down to pre-existing illnesses, but Mr. Rehman claimed the evidence demonstrates that she passed away “as a result of physical abuse” by morality police officers.

The conclusions of the “so-called inquiries” were hardly open nor reliable, he continued, and “State officials have customarily denied any misconduct or malfeasance on their side.”

Authorities have referred to the women-led demonstrations against the clergy as “riots” and have retaliated with what Mr. Rehman has called “brutal” violence. It occurs at a time when Iran has seen a substantial increase in the number of executions; 143 have been recorded so far this year only.

The claims in Mr. Rehman’s report, according to the Iranian ambassador Ali Bahreini, “sound like a tragic tale,” and he was accused of relying on “terrorist groups,” Western leaders, and media sources that “depict their imaginations as the realities of the violations of human rights in Iran.”