The headscarf, or hijab, considered a symbol of women's modesty in Islam, is compulsory for females in Iran
A woman jailed in Iran for one year for removing her hijab in public to protest against the country's Islamic dress code has been released early, her lawyer said Tuesday.
"Vida Movahedi was summoned by prison authorities on Sunday evening and told that her sentence had been commuted, and combined with some accumulated furlough she was free to go," Payam Derafshan told AFP.
Movahedi, who is in her mid-20s, was arrested in October after removing her hijab from her head at Tehran's Enghelab Square.
She was charged with "encouraging corruption and debauchery" and sentenced by a court in Tehran to 12 months in prison on March 2, Derafshan added.
The lawyer said Movahedi had stated her opposition to the "compulsory hijab" and that she wanted to express her opinion in "a civil protest".
Under the Islamic dress code, women can only show their face, hands and feet in public and are supposed to wear only modest colours.
Movahedi has staged protests in the past.
In December 2017, she stood on a pillar box on Enghelab Avenue without the mandatory long coat and raised her white veil on a stick.
Enghelab means revolution in Farsi and the square and avenue are among the busiest areas in the capital.
Movahedi's move sparked similar protests by other women, including some at the same spot, and they soon won recognition as "Dokhtaran-e enghelab", or the Girls of Revolution Street.
Like other women who copied her, she was arrested, but she was only fined for her first protest.
BrewtalDoom on May 28th, 2019 at 20:40 UTC »
I had a good friend from Iran. She told me a story about how one day, her father walked in on her praying and was like, "What are you doing?". She told him that she was praying because that's what they had to do. Her father laughed and told her that's only what the government says you have to do. In your own home, you could do what you wanted. She told me about how her experience was so similar to a lot of people her age (born around 1985) and that whatever the outward face of Iran was, the majority of the people were very relaxed and 'normal'. The whole Islamic thing was all for show and whilst people might go out and act as the government wanted them to in public, private life is very different. After I lived in Qatar for 3 years, I saw examples of the same thing. Dudes would have bikini parties in these mansions paid for by their fathers. But they had them sound-proofed and blacked out to the point where they'd have a DJ blasting tunes but you'd be at the front door and it would be dead silence.
The lesson I learned is that whilst these people might be out protesting in the streets and calling for people's heads, privately, they were just like the rest of us, but had to hold up the pretense of being super-religous in order to please the State.
rigsta on May 28th, 2019 at 20:30 UTC »
Ah yes. Female hair is after all well known for triggering spontaneous drug- and alcohol-fuelled orgies when exposed to sunlight. It was a crowded area, too. How irresponsible!
brownarmyhat on May 28th, 2019 at 19:03 UTC »
I love that people are arguing over which country makes more sense to go to war with like they're comparing nutrition facts on different labels. You really know you're a super power when you're weighing your options for which war to start. How about don't go to useless wars lol. Maybe stop getting innocent young people killed on both sides for no reason which leads to more uneducated hate from survivors and future generations. This is so fucking stupid.
Edit: sorry that this comment got popular. I understand it's not the topic of the post, I was responding mostly to just what I was seeing in the comments. Thanks for the gold though