Tehran Students Protest Against Tightened Dress Code Restrictions
A large group of students held a demonstration at their Tehran university against tightened measures by morality guards to force students to comply with hijab.
A large group of students held a demonstration at their Tehran university against tightened measures by morality guards to force students to comply with hijab.
Students of the University of Science and Technology held a gathering and a march at their campus to protest the atmosphere of fear, intimidation and interference of morality guards to force them to comply with Islamic dress and other codes.
The rally took place four days after a member of the Islamic Association of the university was beaten while distributing a statement against the newly enforced measures by morality guards and and supervisors at the women’s dormitories.
The students chanted slogans against the measures and the morality guards and university authorities such as "Girls' dormitory is a prison cell" and "We do not want police-style guards".
Iran international reported on Friday that some universities in the capital Tehran have tightened dress code restrictions as the students have started to attend in person after over two years of virtual classes due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
In an unprecedented move, morality guards of the University of Science and Technology and Amirkabir University began motorcycle patrols to force students comply with hijab and other Islamic regulations.
Other guards who are stationed at the gates of the university and its dormitories have also been unprecedently strict since universities reopened, students said, denying access to those whose appearance is not deemed "appropriate".
The university security is also tasked with watching over the social and political behavior of students and the new motorcycle patrols started to check if the students are always observing the hijab rules, and if male and female students sit and mingle together on the campus. If they saw anyone who didn’t comply with the regulations, they wrote down their student numbers, which means they could face more severe consequences if they repeat such behavior.
Similar measures have also been reported in other universities of the capital Tehran, with some students describing the unprecedented restrictions as similar to those imposed by the Taliban.
On Wednesday, students at the Iran University of Science and Technology wrote an open letter in protest to the new restrictions, saying “University is not a barracks, and the dormitory is not a prison”.
The Islamic Students Associations of the University of Tehran and Tehran University of Medical Science also wrote to the president of their universities in the past few days to criticize the new measures.
Students say after the re-opening of higher education institutions this year, the atmosphere has greatly changed. Authorities appointed after hardline President Ebrahim Raisi was elected, they say, are apparently finding it a good time to enforce an aggressive approach to Islamic discipline on students.
Since hijab became compulsory in Iran, within a couple of years from the Islamic Revolution of 1979, all government offices and universities have had special officers monitoring women's abidance by the rules of compulsory hijab and preventing those failing to meet their standards of modesty from entering the premises.
An Iranian journalist living in Turkey, Amirhossein Miresmaili, tweeted on April 21 that speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf’s wife, daughter and sone-in-law who had gone shopping in Istanbul bought two luxury apartments in a famous complex for a total price of 400 billion Iranian rials or $1.6 million.
Miresmaili told Iran International that three days after he revealed the real estate purchase, the Ghalibaf’s have not denied the report, although another journalist residing in Iran has repeated the allegation. He insisted that Iranians in Turkey had seen the family at the Sky Land high rises in Istanbul and the apartments were bought in someone else’s name.
The Ghalibaf family scandal broke when videos emerged that they were having arguments in Istanbul airport for overweight luggage, and it became clear that they had bought luxury items for a baby on the way for Ghalibaf’s daughter. Later a journalist in Iran who had first exposed the shopping trip said that Ghalibafs had returned with more than 20 pieces of luggage.
The parliament speaker’s son and assistant went into damage control mode, expressing regret and Fars news agency affiliated with the Revolutionary Guard tried to deny the shopping trip, but no one believed the denial and the attempt soon died down. Calls for Ghaliaf’s resignation rang out loud in Tehran, but the final arbiter of such issues, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has remained silent.
Ghalibaf has been involved in numerous financial corruption cases, especially during his tenure as Tehran mayor from 2005-2017. As a former Revolutionary Guard general, in many of his corruption cases there is a thread to other high ranking IRGC figures, including Qasem Soleimani, killed in a US drone strike in Baghdad in 2020.
Iran is in a four-day religious holiday and newspapers are not published while politicians and most journalist enjoy the free time probably on the Caspian seashore, far away from the capital. To what extent the apartment shopping allegation will gain traction once the holiday is over, is hard to say, but serious damage has been done to both Ghalibaf and the domestic image of the Islamic Republic, already mired by numerous previous cases of corruption and embezzlement by top officials and regime insiders.
One of the interesting public debates that ensued after the news about Ghalibaf’s scandal was a view expressed by political commentator Sadeq Zibakalam, a former revolutionary turned regime critic, who said luxury shopping abroad is not a crime in itself and many Iranians aspire to live a better life. The issue he said is with whose money such adventures are financed. Nevertheless, many on social media criticized Zibakalam for apparently defending Ghalibaf, which he subsequently denied, saying he simply did not want to kick him while he was down.
But apparently there are others who would not hesitate to stab Ghalibaf while he is wounded. Soon there will be a vote to elect a new parliament speaker and ‘revolutionary’ hardliners would be happy to steal the seat from Ghalibaf.