Emphasis on Monetary Fines for Improper Hijab; Warning About Dismissal of Employees with ‘Un-Islamic Profile Pictures’
Following intensified government pressure on hijab, the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue issued emphasis on “monetary fines for violators” and employees in Razavi Khorasan were threatened with dismissal if their profile pictures are deemed “un-Islamic”.
According to a report by IRIB news agency, Mohammad Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, secretary of the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue, stressed at the national conference on chastity and hijab that in the headquarters’ “Chastity and Hijab” plan, “those wearing improper hijab are no longer criminals but violators, and instead of filing cases and applying punishments stipulated in law, the person would be fined monetarily”.
Golpayegani’s reference was to the 120-page “Hijab and Chastity” plan that the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Forbidding Vice prepared in winter 2021 and circulated to government organizations.
This plan differs from previous plans and laws regarding hijab and dress approved by the government, including the replacement of “fines” with punishments such as “flogging” and “imprisonment”, from which the headquarters’ required annual budget is meant to be funded from these fines.
Previously, the application of fines for people “wearing improper hijab, without hijab, and loosely wearing hijab” was mostly applicable to vehicles, but in the new plan the scope of this punishment has expanded and is referred to as “monetizing improper hijab in social interactions”.
Examples of these financial penalties include “imposing fines on house plates that people wearing improper hijab visit”, “fining building and complex managers for residents’ improper hijab”, and “fining government officials for neglect in promoting virtue among employees”.
Although the amount of fines for hijab “violators” in this plan has not been explicitly announced, the section on “virtual space and media” addresses this matter in detail, and the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue has requested the addition of an article to the cybercrimes law, according to which anyone publishing content or images “against public chastity” or “promoting against Islamic hijab” in virtual space would be sentenced to “imprisonment from 91 days to two years or a monetary fine from five million to forty million rials or both punishments”.
The plan also states that “publishing images of Iranian women without proper Quranic hijab in virtual space by themselves will result in deprivation of one or more social rights as well as prohibition from activity in virtual space for a period of six months to one year”.
Following the circulation of this plan to government organizations and offices in recent months, restrictions on women’s hijab and dress have increased notably not only in public spaces but also in the workplace. For instance, Bank Melli in mid-July issued a circular prohibiting “wearing high heels and thin socks” as well as “employing female secretaries for managers”.
However, restrictions in public and administrative spaces have been more pronounced in religious cities, including the order of the Mashhad mayor regarding the prosecutor’s letter to prevent women “wearing improper hijab” from entering the metro, as well as the prevention of mothers of boys from entering the wrestling competition hall in Mashhad last month.
Continuing this increasing trend of restrictions, Mehdi Rezaei, secretary of the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Forbidding Vice in Razavi Khorasan, on Sunday, August 15, referred to the continuation of the process of segregating male and female employees’ offices in the province and warned about employees’ profile pictures.
According to Rezaei, if employees whose profile pictures on virtual space are not in Islamic dress are referred to the disciplinary committee, where they can even be subjected to dismissal orders under the name of violation of law.
Source: Radio Farda
