Arrest of 300 activists against the wearing of the veil

Iranian authorities have arrested more than 300 people accused of campaigning against the compulsory wearing of the veil in the country, the Fars news agency reported on Sunday quoting an official.

“We have identified more than 300 people who are fighting against the veil in different ways,” said Ali Khanmohammadi, spokesperson for the state-affiliated Organization for the Promotion of Virtue and the Rejection of Vice, quoted by Fars, without specifying the date and place of these arrests.

Since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, the law in force in Iran requires women, Iranian and foreign and whatever their religion, to leave the head veiled and the body covered with a loose garment of varying length.

However, an increasing number of Iranian women in Tehran and other major cities are showing their hair clearly.

But in recent months, police interventions have multiplied to enforce the law.

In early July, the authorities banned women not wearing the veil from accessing the metro in the holy city of Mashhad (northeast), sparking controversy in the country.

And at the end of June in Shiraz (south), the police arrested several young girls who removed their veil during a skateboarding event, as well as organizers.

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