Khorasan Razavi Prosecutor’s Office: We Have Not Banned Women from Cycling
The prosecutor general and revolutionary prosecutor of Khorasan Razavi Province’s central office denied issuing a judicial order to prohibit women from using bicycles in the holy city of Mashhad.
According to Tasnim News Agency’s report, following the spread of “claims in cyberspace regarding the prohibition of women’s use of bicycles” in Mashhad by judicial order, Mohammad Hossein Derudi, prosecutor general and revolutionary prosecutor of Khorasan Razavi Province’s central office, while denying the matter stated that “the prosecutor’s office of Khorasan Razavi Province’s central office has not issued any judicial order in this regard.”
His statement came at a time when Mahdi Rozbahane, head of Khorasan Razavi Province’s cycling federation, had reported on August 5 that women’s cycling was banned in public spaces.
In late June of this year, when women’s cycling was announced as prohibited in Torghabe-Shandiz city in the province, Hadi Sobhani, the city’s prosecutor, said this prohibition was implemented based on a “resolution of the command for promoting virtue and forbidding vice headquarters.”
Ahmad Alamolhoda, Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, also stated on July 22 of this year while opposing women’s cycling in public spaces that women should cycle in places “away from men’s view.”
He emphasized that if women cycle in public places such as universities, they ignite the “sexual desires of youth” and the university becomes a “center of corruption.”
The debate over women’s cycling has been a matter of discussion in Iran’s public sphere and media for over 20 years and has constantly been accompanied by controversy and dispute due to the steadfast opposition of religious and government institutions.
Source: Radio Farda
