In Iran it is compulsory for women to cover their heads with a hijab when they are in public. Women who do not comply risk punishments ranging from fines to imprisonment.
In fact, the so-called ‘morality police’ have even put up state-funded billboards that present those who do not wear a hijab as spoiled and dishonourable.
But women have started to hit back by staging protests against enforced hijab. Some women have even resorted to shaving their heads so that they can appear in public without a veil
And now Iranian men are taking to social media to show their solidarity.
The ‘My Stealthy Freedom’ campaign was started by Masih Alinejad, an Iranian activist and journalist living in New York. Women are encouraged to enjoy a ‘stealthy’ moment of freedom by removing their hijab in a non-domestic setting.
Taking the campaign a step further, Alinejad urged men to join in and post a photo of themselves wearing hijab.
“Most of these men are living inside Iran and they have witnessed how their female relatives have been suffering at the hands of the morality police and humiliation of enforced hijab,” she told the Independent.
“For years, from childhood to womanhood, we’ve been forced to wear the compulsory headscarf and for years we have had to endure the loss of our dignity. Many men have gotten used to seeing women in compulsory hijab every day and you think that is normal. But for millions of Iranian women, this compulsory hijab is an insult to their dignity.
One of the pictures shows a man wearing his cousins headscarf. He captions:
“When my female cousins saw that I was wearing their headscarf, they couldn’t stop laughing. I asked them, does it look so funny on me? I really love and respect my cousins.
“I think that one should not talk about freedom if she/he supports the idea of restricting other people’s freedom. If only hijab were the only problem in our country, as the authorities would like us to believe.”
He continues: “It is as if they have hypnotised our brains with a black piece of cloth and they only want us to believe that hijab is the most important issue in our country.”
