Lawmakers handed a invoice laying out harsh penalties for violations of Tehran’s spiritual costume code
Iran is about to undertake a brand new regulation that threatens stricter punishments for ladies who refuse to put on the obligatory Islamic headband, together with jail sentences as much as a decade for these concerned in organized protests in opposition to the rule.
The nation’s parliament – the Islamic Consultative Meeting – handed the laws on Wednesday, voting to impose the brand new regulation on a trial foundation for 3 years earlier than it expires. Iran’s Guardian Council, an oversight company made up of non secular and authorized specialists, nonetheless should approve the measure earlier than it’s enacted.
The regulation presents dozens of amendments to Tehran’s spiritual costume code, which has been in pressure for each women and men for the reason that nation’s 1979 revolution, with greater than 70 articles defining guidelines and penalties for rule-breakers.
Along with the required headband, or hijab, ladies can be barred from carrying “revealing or tight clothes, or clothes that exhibits components of the physique decrease than the neck or above the ankles or above the forearms,” based on native media stories. For males, “revealing clothes that exhibits components of the physique decrease than the chest or above the ankles, or shoulders” can be off-limits.
Iranians discovered to be concerned in organized protests in opposition to the costume code will face the harshest punishments beneath the brand new regulation, which proposes 10-year jail sentences for protesters working in live performance with “international governments, networks, media, teams or organizations.” The penalties additionally apply to enterprise homeowners who choose to serve ladies not carrying the headdress, or who promote “nudity, lack of chastity or dangerous overlaying.”
Legislators handed the measure simply days after the anniversary of the dying of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old lady who died whereas within the custody of Iran’s ‘morality police’ after she was accused of violating the hijab mandate. Her dying kicked off months of violent protests throughout Iran, leading to 1000’s of arrests and additional lack of life amongst demonstrators and safety forces.
The United Nations and different worldwide humanitarian our bodies have condemned the spiritual costume code. Final month, a panel of UN specialists claimed the hijab regulation “might be described as a type of gender apartheid,” warning of “extreme punishments on ladies and ladies for noncompliance.”
In a latest interview with ABC Information, the spouse of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Jamileh Alamolhoda, defended the nation’s costume code, arguing the foundations had been crafted “out of respect for ladies” and had been no completely different from different “costume codes in all places.”
“I must inform you that hijab was a convention, was a religiously mandated custom, accepted broadly. And now for years, it has been changed into a regulation. And breaking of the regulation, trampling upon any legal guidelines, similar to in any nation, comes with its personal set of punishments,” she added.
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