Threat of Confrontation with Female Cyclists on Isfahan Streets by Prosecutor

The Isfahan prosecutor on May 14, 2019 banned women’s cycling in the province. He cited the reason as “law,” “religious scholars’ rulings,” dissatisfaction and protests from “Friday prayer leaders and families of martyrs,” and a request from the “Isfahan Committee for the Revival of Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil.” Ali Esfahani, the general and revolutionary prosecutor of Isfahan, stated that “women’s cycling in public spaces is a forbidden act,” and proposed that specially designed bicycles with appropriate covering be made for women so they could travel in the city. However, the Isfahan prosecutor provided no clarification about his proposed plan.

Previously, the city’s Friday prayer leader had repeatedly protested women’s cycling, calling women riding bicycles a provocative act for men on the streets.

Ali Esfahani, the Isfahan prosecutor, in banning women’s cycling said that violators would be summoned in two or three stages. He said law enforcement had been instructed to “respectfully” warn female cyclists on the first occasion and then take their identification documents and confiscate their bicycles. After that, the violating woman must report to the police security office and provide a written “pledge” that she will no longer cycle in the city. After obtaining the pledge, her identification documents and bicycle would be returned.

According to the Isfahan prosecutor, if the violation continues for a second or third time, “it is a forbidden act and will be dealt with according to Islamic punishment law.”

Ali Esfahani said: “According to religious scholars’ rulings and also based on law, women’s cycling in public spaces is a forbidden act. Moreover, for a long time, Friday prayer leaders, congregations, and families of martyrs had been protesting women’s cycling in public places, and there have also been harassments and disturbances for these women.” He added: “In addition, the Committee for the Revival of Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil, which is established based on law and whose decisions are binding, has requested the pursuit of and confrontation with women cyclists in public spaces.”

The Isfahan prosecutor also said that women who remove their headscarves in public spaces will be confronted.

From Friday Prayer Leaders’ Sabotage to the Supreme Leader’s Ruling

Ayatollah Yousef Tabatabai Nejad, the Friday prayer leader of Isfahan, stated in September 2018 that the Isfahan Municipality should not encourage women to cycle in public spaces. Referring to his ten-year opposition to this matter, he said: “I said about ten years ago that women’s cycling according to the view of most sources of emulation is not correct in public spaces.”

The Isfahan Friday prayer leader had stated that women’s cycling on the streets is conducive to “subsequent corruption”: “In Islamic narrations it is mentioned that a forbidden glance is a poisoned arrow from Satan, and without doubt this glance creates the conditions for subsequent corruption.”

This Friday prayer leader also in September 2010, when the Isfahan Municipality had encouraged women to cycle, said in his sermons before Friday prayers: “We must never allow women’s cycling to become common.” He considered a woman’s body on a bicycle as a consequence of social corruption: “Women’s cycling, in addition to inappropriate dress and hijab, due to the movement of the body on the bicycle, carries social consequences and corruption.”

In the discussion of women’s cycling, some sources of emulation have stated their opposing views. Ayatollah Naser Makarem Shirazi in a book published in 2010 on women’s laws wrote about women’s cycling and skating: “Given the negative consequences that such activities have, it is necessary to avoid them. And do not pay attention to the temptations that these things tempt.”

The issue of women’s cycling has gone so far that even Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, issued a ruling about it. The Supreme Leader’s information center announced on May 17, 2016 that according to Ali Khamenei’s ruling, women’s cycling is forbidden: “Women’s cycling in public gatherings and also where they are visible to non-mahram men is forbidden. If she is not in the view of non-mahram men, there is no problem with it per se.”

The Supreme Leader’s ruling was issued some time after women’s cycling in Marivan. In June 2016, the head of the cultural commission of the Marivan city council asked citizens to use bicycles instead of personal cars for clean and healthy air. Naturally, a number of women also appeared cycling in the city, after which the Marivan police on August 25, 2016, by seizing bicycles from a number of female cyclists, prevented women cyclists from being present in the city, and by obtaining a pledge from them asked them not to cycle in the city again. After this action, a group of Marivan citizens in Kurdistan province, by forming a group on Telegram and publishing a letter addressed to the governorship of this city, protested the detention of several women cyclists for a few hours in this city and the prevention of their cycling by law enforcement.

Mamosta Mustafa Shirzadi, the Friday prayer leader of the Grand Mosque of Marivan, also said at Friday prayers on August 8 and in response to women’s cycling in the city:“Women’s cycling in public is a sin and it is necessary for officials and the sports and youth department to provide appropriate and covered spaces for women.”

Some time later, the Supreme Leader with his ruling silenced this dispute for a time. But women and their interest in sports did not prevent them from hiding their bicycles forever in their homes, and some time later they again continued to ride in Tehran and other cities including Isfahan.

A Challenge Called Women’s Sports

Women’s sports after the 1979 Revolution faced the challenge of conflicting with Islamic law in Iran. In the first half of the 1980s, no sports news about women was published, and after that, mostly on Iranian state television, only announcements of women’s sports news without any images of them were made. The clothing of Iranian female athletes in international competitions has repeatedly been a topic of discussion and even sometimes a serious obstacle to their presence in global arenas. With the emergence of social networks, greater opportunities arose for women to present their demands in the field of sports and also to cover their successes or problems. Many female athletes or sports enthusiasts by joining social networks created their own personal media and informed about the condition of women’s sports including the demand for women’s cycling.

However, there are still many cultural, social, family and more importantly political obstacles facing Iranian women interested in sports. Many Shiite sources of emulation and Qom clergy with explicit rulings have considered women’s cycling in public to be a cause of corruption and some have declared it forbidden. Although women’s cycling has no legal prohibition and has not been criminalized in any part of Iran’s constitution or punishment law, based on unwritten law it has been limited to single-gender parks and away from public view and rarely has a place in daily life. This is while in many countries around the world, to preserve the health of society and the environment, both male and female citizens are encouraged to cycle instead of using personal cars, and city management provides dedicated cycling paths for citizens.

Ayatollah Alamolhoda, the Friday prayer leader of Mashhad, stated in June 2011: “A girl in her own house, closes the door and cycles in her courtyard for 10 hours, there is no harm, but when this girl comes to the street and with cycling clothes, rides a bicycle, that clothes and that movement, has the side effect of corruption for society.”

Iranian women in these years have certainly achieved some successes. Including female cyclists in the city of Yazd, although they have faced and still face many prohibitions and opposition from the city’s security and religious institutions, ultimately managed to force officials to establish a cycling track for women. However, the Friday prayer leader of Mohamadabad in Yazd in June also protested the ceremony of women and men cycling to protect the environment, considering such actions as causing “people’s displeasure” and “causing pain to the hearts of the faithful.”

Although many government and religious officials in Iran in these years have imposed prohibitions on Iranian women’s sports and their presence in public gatherings with sports clothing and prevented it, moderate figures have also supported women’s sports. Including Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Council, who addressed hardliners last week saying: “Some obscurantists consider sports contrary to femininity, which is from poorly sewn patches in Islamic thought, and our religious figures, without discrimination of course, appropriate to women’s physical conditions, emphasized the importance of sports.”

Hassan Rouhani, the President of Iran, who began his work with the slogan of upholding citizens’ rights, has repeatedly spoken of justice in sports and has sought to provide appropriate conditions for women’s sports. However, women in Marivan still have to walk with their bicycles instead of riding them!

Source: Iran Human Rights Campaign