Hijab laws to become harsher in Iran

TEHRAN: Iranian authorities are considering a new bill to implement even stricter hijab laws, which include unprecedentedly harsh punitive modifications.

According to a CNN report, the bill sets out a range of proposals, including “much longer prison terms for women who refuse to wear the veil.”

It also proposes “stiff new penalties for celebrities and businesses who flout the rules, and the use of artificial intelligence to identify women in breach of the dress code.”

See: Iranian chess player removes hijab, gets Spanish citizenship

Irani news agency Mehr reported that the proposal has received the nod from Iran’s Legal and Judicial Commission. It is set to submit to the Board of Governors on August 6 before its tabling in the parliament.

Experts have said the bill serves as a warning to Iranians, reinforcing its stance on the hijab.

The 70-page draft law comes as Mahsa Amini’s death anniversary looms. Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman, died in September 2022 while she was in custody of the country’s morality police. She was detained for allegedly violating the dress code and taken to a ‘re-education center’.

Her death sparked mass protests across the country, which initially led morality police to slacken methods of enforcement of the conservative dress code.

Patrolling and surveillance, however, resumed last month. The hijab laws were imposed shortly after Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution.

See: Iran morality police resumes hijab enforcement