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How Iran's brave women are fighting for right to ditch their hijabs

Women in Iran have been protesting the law which requires women above the age of puberty to wear a headscarf - @ksadjadpour
Women in Iran have been protesting the law which requires women above the age of puberty to wear a headscarf - @ksadjadpour

On December 27 last year, a new revolution quietly began in Iran. Vida Movahed, a 31-year-old mother-of-one, stood on a box on Tehran's busy Enghelab Street and removed her hijab. Letting her black hair fall down her back, she tied her white headscarf to a stick and silently waved it like a flag, for an hour.

Videos and pictures of Movahed's peaceful protest against the law, which requires all women in Iran to wear a headscarf, went viral. Soon, other young women - both individually and in small groups - followed suit, sharing their protests with the hashtag #girls-enghelab-street on social media.

'Enghelab' means 'revolution' in Farsi. The Girls of Revolution Street had formed. 

Many feel that while the movement is hugely courageous, it is also somewhat inevitable - and has been rising slowly since 1979, when the new Islamic Republic made headscarves mandatory. 

People in #Iran are asking for the whereabouts of the woman who took off her #hijab to protest the mandatory Islamic dress code using the hashtags #دختر_خیابان_انقلاب_کجاست and #Where_Is_She
She was reportedly arrested shortly after. #IranProtestspic.twitter.com/G6oKHIPA68

— Armin Navabi (@ArminNavabi) January 18, 2018

In the intervening four decades, all women above the age of puberty have been required by law to cover their heads, although many have tried to fight back through social movements. Since these latest protests began, 29 women have been arrested for taking off their head scarves, according to the Government. Movahed was reportedly held for a month and then released on bail last week. 

Women across the country applauded her bravery. "This courageous woman stood up on this pillar box and said NO to the compulsory veil in Iran. She is detained in prison and she has a 19-month-old baby - Vida is the symbol of feminism in Iran," wrote one.

Many followed in her footsteps. "This couragous woman took her #hijab off in front of #Tehran Revolutionary Court, the same spot where 33 women’s right activists including myself were arrested during a peaceful demonstration in March 2007. Apparently, the battle continues," said a woman on Twitter. 

Others shared photos of other women who have tried to stand up to oppression in the past 39 years.

"A photo of Iranian women's protest against mandatory veil in 1979. It took, lots of flogging, fining, acid throwing, arrest and humiliation to force Iranian women to wear headscarf," wrote one woman, sharing a photo of Iranian women protesting the 1979 ruling.

Some men have joined in. Pictures have been shared on social media of men waving white flags to support the women's freedom of choice. The Iranian writer Hossein Vahdani tweeted, “How glorious and meaningful it would be if these young women held the key to the liberation of this land from dictatorship.”

Many women are now facing charges which carry penalties of as much as a decade in prison. Narges Hosseini, who was arrested on January 29, after a similar protest on Enghelab Street, is accused of “committing a sinful act” and “violating public prudency,” and also of “encouraging immorality or prostitution.” Her bail has been set at $135,000. 

But though the country's justice system is dealing with these women harshly, some parts of the Government do seem to be responding.

President Hassan Rouhani's office has released a report from three years ago, showing that nearly half of Iranians (both men and women) favoured making the hijab an matter of choice. 

"We cannot pick a lifestyle and tell two generations after us to live like that,” Rouhani said last month, in remarks aimed at Islamic hard-liners. “It is impossible... the views of the young generation about life and the world is different than ours.”

Even within the clerical establishment, views on the issue are beginning to fracture, with many feeling that if wearing the headscarf is indeed an act of religious devotion, then it becomes meaningless if it's mandated by the Government. 

So what's next?

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The international attention the movement is attracting could have one of two results. Either it could help bring about change, as the rest of the world throws its support behind these women - "Iran's Rosa Parks", as Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Middle East Program, put it - and effectively embarrasses the Government into granting these women the freedom to choose.

Or, it could have the opposite effect, entrenching conservative elements and possibly even making the punishments thrown at these women more severe. 

For now, Iranian women are being seen, heard, and supported by millions of people around the world on social media.

Their message is clear: it's not just about the hijab, it's about equality under the law - that is what the Girls of Revolution Street are fighting for.