Women without veils riding motorcycles to Iran: Has the regime lost the battle?

BarcelonaA group of young people play the iconic bottom line of the Seven Nation Army The White Stripes are playing on a street in Tehran. Around them, other young people move to the rhythm of the guitars and drums. Many are girls, dressed in jeans and sneakers, without the Islamic veil. This video, recorded at the end of October, went viral on social media. But it's not the only one. Lately, images and reports have proliferated showing that more and more Iranian women are daring to go out in public without the hijab and even to drive motorcycles, an activity reserved only for men according to Iran's strict Islamic law.

"Women go out on the street as if it were Paris Fashion Week, very dressed up, with a lot of makeup, without a veil," Solmaz Malekien explained to ARA in a video conference from Tehran. She herself says that she never wears the hijab to go out in public or to restaurants or other public places, although at work she must be completely covered, following Islamic dress codes, because she works for a government agency.

She says that the number of women going out without a veil has been increasing for a couple of years now, "although many more are seen wearing Western clothing." "I always kept a scarf in the car to put on if the police stopped me, but that doesn't happen anymore," she says. She recounts that many restaurants have music playing, "like a nightclub." "They can't sell alcohol, but we carry drinks in our bags. These things are done in secret; the government knows perfectly well, but prefers to turn a blind eye," she says. "But we're still afraid," she warns.

All of this may indicate that the theocratic regime has relaxed the repressive machinery it set in motion following the protests over the death of the young Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after she was arrested for not wearing her headscarf properly. Amini, 22, was arrested by Iran's "morality police" in September 2022, and her death in police custody sparked massive protests in Iran under the slogan "Woman, Life, Freedom," which were brutally suppressed with violence, executions, and thousands of arrests. Especially since then, not wearing the veil has become a direct challenge to the regime. And the fact that more and more women are daring to do so could indicate that the authorities have eased up.

Malekien says that this change has been most noticeable in the last year. He attributes it to a situation of overconsumption by the population, especially after the large-scale mobilizations of 2022. "The economic situation is very bad, Iran has many problems, and the government knows it can't pressure people any more and is giving them a little more freedom so they can forget about their problems," he summarizes. His friend Mahshid Akramipouya, who has lived in Madrid for two years but often returns to her country, agrees: "The regime has seen that it's time to give some freedom so people can breathe and so the government can stay in power."

Record number of executions

However, according to several experts and activists, this is just an illusion, and does not mean that the regime has become reformist. "It is not true that the regime has relaxed; the repressive legal framework remains intact," Catalan-Iranian political scientist Anahita Nassir tells ARA. But she points out that it may be carrying out a strategy to divert attention and calm public opinion, amid Iran's growing economic problems and an unprecedented drought which has even led authorities to consider the possibility of evacuating the population of Tehran, that is, more than ten million people. Furthermore, the reactivation of UN sanctions The lack of agreement on Iran's nuclear program could further strain the country's already weakened economy.

Along the same lines, Alex Vatanka, director of the Iran Program at the Washington-based Middle East Institute, told Reuters that the regime is pursuing a calculated strategy because "there is a real risk of mass unrest resurfacing," but that the hard line remains. "This contradiction is deliberate: a release valve for the public, alongside a hard ceiling on genuine dissent," he asserted.

In recent months, thousands of journalists, lawyers, students, writers, and activists have been arrested, according to human rights organizations. And executions have increased: by mid-October, 1,176 had been documented, an average of four executions per day, according to the UN Human Rights Office. This represents a record not seen since 1989.

Since the 2022 protests, Iranian authorities have increased their use of the death penalty as a tool of repression and to crush dissent. Furthermore, this year has also seen an increase in the use of capital punishment under the pretext of national security following the escalation of hostilities between Israel and Iran.

Business closures

Several local media outlets have reported in recent weeks that authorities are now focusing more on targeting establishments than individuals who violate Islamic law. The US-based Center for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI) has documented that at least 50 establishments, including cafes, restaurants, wedding halls, and clothing stores, were sealed off by authorities between June and October for serving unveiled women.

And last week, the head of Iran's judiciary ordered prosecutors to "swiftly" confront what he considers "social anomalies," such as women going without hijabs, according to local media reports. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei told the Supreme Judicial Council that new directives targeting women have been issued and instructed prosecutors nationwide to work more closely with security agencies and law enforcement. Mahshid Akramipouya, the Iranian woman living in Madrid, believes that these kinds of messages and threats are intended to appease the more conservative segment of society, which strongly opposes this relaxation of women's freedom. "The hijab is the first bastion of Iranian women's Islamic identity. If this bastion collapses, other cultural and heritage elements will gradually crumble in turn," the ultraconservative newspaper warned. Kayhan

Both Mahshid and her friend Solmaz fear that reality could change again if the Iranian regime manages to stabilize the political and economic situation. "The government now has many worries and many things to resolve. If people are happy with this freedom, the government can dedicate itself to solving problems, but if it ever stabilizes, they will start pressuring the citizens again," Solmaz believes. "For now," she summarizes with a touch of irony, "we've noticed that Iranian women are very beautiful."