Iran International
Iran's Police closed down one of the country’s leading bookstores in Tehran on Friday for allowing women without “proper” Hijab to participate in a cultural event.
In a statement posted on its website, Shahr-e Ketab (Book City), a flagship chain bookstore, revealed that the police department in charge of overseeing retail shops, restaurants and similar businesses had sealed its central store in Tehran.
The police cited a “failure to abide by regulations of trade and interior ministry’s [directives]” as the reason for the closure of the popular bookstore in the heart of the capital.
Shahr-e Ketab, Iran’s largest chain of book and music stores, is a non-profit organization that operates dozens of modern bookstore-cafes across the country. In addition to selling books, it holds various cultural events.
“The Book City of Tehran was closed down over a few strands of hair!” Mohammad-Taghi Fazel-Meybodi, a prominent cleric who opposes coercion of women to wear the hijab, said in a tweet Friday. He questioned the religious and legal justification for suspending cultural centers and businesses over such minor issues and criticized the authorities for disgracing the country.
Fazel-Meybodi, like many others, also criticized the government for prioritizing the enforcement of hijab rules over addressing more pressing issues such as corruption and economic improvement. He suggested that the money spent on enforcing the compulsory hijab could have been better utilized to combat embezzlement and rising prices.
In recent months, authorities have increased pressure on businesses and retailers to enforce hijab rules and have warned or shut down thousands of businesses.
The closure of businesses for hijab-related issues, a tool used by authorities for four decades, is aimed at pressuring them to police women's hijab compliance, allowing the police and other authorities to avoid direct confrontation and potential clashes with citizens over hijab observance.
Many among Iranian women are increasingly refusing to wear the hijab even at the risk of being deprived from services in government offices, hospitals, and other public areas or their vehicles being impounded by the police for weeks.
On Friday an airport police official, Mohsen Aghili, said women who do not fully adhere to the “sharia-dictated hijab”, would no longer be served at airports.
After weeks of denial by various officials including the mayor of Tehran and the interior minister, the Secretary of the Supreme Cultural Revolution Council, Abdolhossein Khosropanah, on Friday confirmed that hijab enforcers are indeed organized by the council’s “Hijab and Chastity Taskforce” in coordination with the interior ministry.
Hijab enforcers, uniformed women in black veils, are sometimes accompanied by male plainclothes cameramen who record hijab breaches. They were initially stationed at metro stations in August but are now seen patrolling other public places, such as parks and busy streets, and admonishing women whose appearance does not conform to the dictated hijab rules.
Khosropanah also demanded gender segregation in universities and claimed that “the world has realized that gender segregation in different areas [of society] ensures better performance and security of both genders.”
The Iranian leadership, typically reticent about Russia's double standards, has, for the second time this year, heightened its response to Moscow's stance. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's most senior foreign policy adviser, former Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati, implicitly criticized Russia's behavior by stating, "Iran will not allow any foreign entity to intervene in its internal affairs."
In a similar situation earlier this year, Velayati, following Russia's joint statement with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in September, emphasized the importance of Iran's friendly and strategic ties with Russia. He pointed out that both sides' bilateral and regional interests should be considered. Notably, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei remained silent, as is often the case, regarding Russia's actions that undermine Iran's territorial integrity.
Recently, the Iranian Foreign Ministry criticized "part of the statement of the 6th Arab-Russian Cooperation Forum held in Morocco, dismissing the claims on three Iranian islands as baseless and unacceptable." Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani asserted that "The Islands of Abu Musa, Greater Tunb, and Lesser Tunb are eternal parts of Iran and inseparable from the Islamic Republic." He underscored that Iran's sovereignty over these islands is non-negotiable, emphasizing the country's commitment to protecting its territorial integrity.
In response to the Foreign Ministry's statement, Iranian international lawyer Reza Nasri highlighted that Russia's support for the UAE's sovereignty claims over the Persian Gulf islands contrasts with Iran's support for Russia in the Ukraine conflict. Nasri emphasized the need for Russia to be a strategic ally to Iran and called for respect for Iran's territorial integrity.
Britain, which maintained control of Abu Musa, and the Greater and Lesser Tunb it had occupied in the 19th century, withdrew its forces from the Persian Gulf in 1971 and the United Arab Emirates was formed. However, Iran’s Imperial government at the time decided to reclaim what it believed were historical Iranian islands.
Mohammad Reza Shah sent the Iranian navy to secure all three in November of the same year, two days before UAE was established. Iranian forces remain on the islands, with only Abu Musa having much of a civilian population of several thousand.
X (Twitter) users criticized the untimeliness of Russia's behavior, especially as Iran is working to finalize a strategic security pact with Russia. Some social media users labeled Iranian officials as "traitors" over Tehran's response.
Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Amirabdollahian called on Moscow to respect Iran's territorial integrity and sovereignty, after Russia supported the UAE’s sovereignty claims over three Persian Gulf islands. He said during a telephone conversation with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov: "The Islamic Republic of Iran completely rejects any claim in this regard by any party. Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries is one of the fundamental principles in relations between countries, and Tehran makes no compromises with any party when it comes to respect for its territorial integrity and sovereignty issues." Lavrov responded that "The sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been respected by Russia and Moscow's official policy in this regard should never be doubted."
Earlier in this year, the media pointed out that some Iranian hardliners supported Russia's humiliating stances on the three Iranian islands in the Persian Gulf. At the time Raisi-administration-owned daily Iran charged that Iranian media outlets that criticized Russia's positions get their orders from the United States.