TEHRAN, Iran: The simple act of walking has become a display of defiance for a young Iranian woman who often moves in Tehran’s streets without a compulsory headscarf, or hijab.
With every step, she risks harassment or even arrest by Iran’s morality police whose job it is to enforce the strict dress code imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“I have to confess it is really, really scary,” the 30-year-old fire-safety consultant said in a WhatsApp audio message, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.
But she is also hopeful, saying she believes the authorities find it increasingly difficult to suppress protests as more women join in. “They are running after us, but cannot catch us,” she said. “This is why we believe change is going to be made.”
The hijab debate has further polarized Iranians at a time when the country is buckling under unprecedented US sanctions imposed since the Trump administration pulled out of a 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers last year. It’s unclear to what extent the government can enforce hijab compliance amid an economic malaise, including a currency collapse and rising housing prices.
There’s anecdotal evidence that more women are pushing back against the dress code, trying to redefine red lines as they test the response of the ruling Shiite Muslim clergy and their security agencies.
An Associated Press reporter spotted about two dozen women in the streets without a hijab over the course of nine days, mainly in well-to-do areas of Tehran — a mall, a lakeside park, a hotel lobby.
Many other women, while stopping short of outright defiance, opted for loosely draped colorful scarves that show as much hair as they cover. Even in Tehran’s Grand Bazaar, frequented by many traditional women, most female shoppers wore these casual hijabs. Still, a sizeable minority of women was covered head-to-toe in black robes and tightly pulled headscarves, the so-called chador.
The struggle against compulsory headscarves first made headlines in December 2017 when a woman climbed atop a utility box in Tehran’s Revolution Street, waving her hijab on a stick. More than three dozen protesters have been detained since, including nine who are currently in detention, said Masih Alinejad, an Iranian activist who now lives in New York.
Despite attempts to silence protesters, public debate has intensified, amplified by social media.
Last month, a widely watched online video showed a security agent grab an unveiled teenage girl and violently push her into the back of a police car, prompting widespread criticism.
President Hassan Rouhani and Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, have supported a softer attitude toward women who don’t comply with the official dress code. However, hard-liners opposed to such easing have become more influential as the nuclear deal is faltering.
They have called for harsh punishment, even lashes, arguing that allowing women to show their hair leads to moral decay and the disintegration of families. The judiciary recently urged Iranians to inform on women without hijabs by sending photos and videos to designated social media accounts.
“The more women dress in an openly sexual way, the less we’ll have social peace, while facing a higher crime rate,” Minoo Aslani, head of the women’s branch of the paramilitary Basij group, told a rally last week.
Another gathering was attended by several thousand women in chadors. One held up a sign reading, “The voluntary hijab is a plot by the enemy.”
Reformist lawmaker Parvaneh Salahshouri said coercion does not work. “What we see is that the morality police have been a failure,” said Salahshouri, who wears a headscarf out of religious belief.
Changing hijab rules through legislation is unlikely because of the constraints on parliament, she said.
Instead, women should engage in non-violent civil disobedience, Salahshouri said. She cautioned that it’s a slow, difficult road, but that “Iranian women have not given up their efforts.”
The hijab controversy goes back to the mid-1930s when police forced women to take off their hijabs, part of a Westernization policy by then-Shah Reza Pahlavi. Under his son and successor, women could choose. Western apparel was common among the elite.
A 2018 survey by a parliament research center indicates that most women wear a casual hijab and only 13% opt for a chador.
Attitudes have changed. In 1980, two-thirds believed women should wear hijabs. Today, fewer than 45% approve of government intervention in the issue, the research said.
Iran has seen waves of anti-government protests, including an outcry after a 2009 election many contended was stolen by hard-liners. Those with economic grievances frequently protest.
Alinejad, the activist, argued the campaign against forced hijabs carries symbolic weight, saying that mandatory headscarves were “the symbol that the Iranian government used to take the whole society hostage.”
In recent years, she has posted videos and photos of activists, including of women filming themselves as they walk in the streets without a headscarf. Alinejad said she receives more than 20 images a day, but posts only some.
The activists in Iran take risks.
In March, human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has represented female protesters, was sentenced to 38.5 years in prison, of which she must serve 12, according to her husband.
In April, activists Yasaman Aryani, her mother Monireh Arabshahi and Mojgan Keshavarz were arrested after posting a video showing them without headscarves in the Tehran metro. In the video, they distributed flowers to female passengers and spoke of a day when women have the freedom to choose.
Others have pushed boundaries more gradually.
The 30-year-old fire-safety consultant said she tries to avoid policemen when she walks the streets without a hijab. She said she grudgingly complies with the dress code when she delivers lectures or sings in a mixed choir — activities she would otherwise be barred from.
At the high-end Palladium Mall in northern Tehran, several shoppers casually ignored a sign reminding customers that the hijab is mandatory. One woman only pulled up her scarf, which was draped around her shoulders, when she stepped into an elevator and found herself next to a security guard.
Nearby, 20-year-old Paniz Masoumi sat on the stone steps of a plaza. She had dyed some of her hair blue, but kept that funky patch hidden under a loose scarf.
She said police recently impounded her car for two weeks, fining her amid claims that a traffic camera snapped her with a below-standard hijab.
If hijabs were voluntary, she’d throw off hers, Masoumi said. But for now, “I am not looking for trouble.”
Iranian women take off their hijabs as hard-liners push back
Iranian women take off their hijabs as hard-liners push back
- The hijab debate has further polarized Iranians at a time when the country is buckling under unprecedented US sanctions
- The hijab controversy goes back to the mid-1930s when police forced women to take off their hijabs, part of a Westernization policy
Turkiye’s Erdogan meets pro-Kurdish politicians as they seek to end a 40-year conflict
- Erdogan met Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder, parliamentary deputies for the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, at the presidential palace in Ankara
- Buldan and Onder have been among those to visit the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party in a bid to build a framework to end fighting that has caused tens of thousands of deaths
ISTANBUL: Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday held a first meeting with pro-Kurdish politicians who are working to bring an end to the 40-year conflict between Turkiye and Kurdish militants.
Erdogan met Pervin Buldan and Sirri Sureyya Onder, parliamentary deputies for the Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, or DEM Party, at the presidential palace in Ankara.
“It was a very positive meeting, it went well. We are much more hopeful,” Onder said.
In a statement after the meeting, the DEM Party said it was held “in an extremely positive, constructive, productive and hopeful atmosphere for the future,” emphasizing the “vital importance” of maintaining a ceasefire and strengthening political dialogue.
Also present at the 1½ hour meeting were intelligence chief Ibrahim Kalin and Efkan Ala, deputy chairperson of Erdogan’s party.
Buldan and Onder have been among those to visit the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in a bid to build a framework to end fighting that has caused tens of thousands of deaths.
Abdullah Ocalan, whose PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkiye and most Western states, called for the group to disband and disarm in late February. Days later the PKK announced a ceasefire.
The PKK appealed for Ocalan to be released from the island prison where he has been held since 1999 to “personally direct and execute” a party congress that would lead to the group’s dissolution.
Erdogan at the time described developments as an “opportunity to take a historic step toward tearing down the wall of terror” between Turks and Kurds.
Since then little concrete progress has been seen, with the government not publicly offering any incentives or proposals to the PKK. Instead, the Turkish military has kept up its campaign against PKK insurgents in northern Iraq while Turkish-backed Syrian groups combat PKK-linked fighters in northeast Syria.
The PKK’s ceasefire came against the backdrop of fundamental changes in the region, including the reconfiguration of power in neighboring Syria after the toppling of President Bashar Assad, the weakening of the Hezbollah militant movement in Lebanon and the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
It also followed judicial pressure on the DEM Party, with several of its mayors being removed from office in recent months and replaced by government appointees.
Some believe the main aim of the reconciliation effort is for Erdogan’s government to garner Kurdish support for a new constitution that would allow him to remain in power beyond 2028, when his term ends.
The ceasefire is the first sign of a breakthrough since peace talks between the PKK and Ankara broke down in the summer of 2015.
Israel military says air force to fire pilots who signed Gaza war petition
- Israeli reserve pilots publicly called for securing the release of hostages, even at the cost of ending the Gaza war
JERUSALEM: An Israeli military official said Thursday that reserve pilots who publicly called for securing the release of hostages, even at the cost of ending the Gaza war, would be dismissed from the air force.
“With the full backing of the chief of the General Staff, the commander of the IAF (Israeli air force) has decided that any active reservist who signed the letter will not be able to continue serving in the IDF (military),” the official told AFP in response to a letter signed by around 1,000 reserve and retired pilots.
The letter, which was published on a full page in multiple daily newspapers, directly challenges the policy of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has insisted that increased military pressure on Gaza is the only way to get Palestinian militants to release hostages seized during Hamas’s October 2023 attack.
“We, the aircrew in the reserves and retired, demand the immediate return of the hostages even at the cost of an immediate cessation of hostilities,” the letter said.
“The war serves primarily political and personal interests, not security interests,” it said, adding that the resumed offensive “will result in the deaths of the hostages, IDF soldiers and innocent civilians, and the exhaustion of the reserve service.”
“Only an agreement can return the hostages safely, while military pressure mainly leads to the killing of hostages and the endangerment of our soldiers.”
The military official said most of the signatories of the letter were not active reservists.
“Our policy is clear — the IDF stands above all political dispute. There is no room for any body or individual, including reservists in active duty, to exploit their military status while simultaneously participating in the fighting and calling for its cessation,” the official said.
Netanyahu said he supported the move to dismiss any active pilots who had signed the letter.
“Refusal is refusal — even when it is implied and expressed in euphemistic language,” a statement released by his office said.
“Statements that weaken the IDF and strengthen our enemies during wartime are unforgivable.”
Some 251 people were seized during Hamas’s attack, 58 of whom are still held in Gaza, including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
A truce that lasted from January 19 to March 17 saw the return of 33 Israeli hostages — eight of them in coffins — in exchange for the release of around 1,800 Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.
Efforts to restore the truce and release more hostages have so far failed.
The army said it was continuing its ground operations in southern Gaza and that it had “dismantled dozens of terrorist infrastructure sites and several tunnel shafts leading to underground terror networks in the area.”
The army said that a Wednesday strike in Gaza City had “eliminated” a Hamas commander from the area it alleged had participated in the October 2023 attack.
Gaza’s civil defense agency said at least 23 people, including women and children, were killed in the strike which levelled a four-story residential building.
In an update Thursday, the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory said at least 1,522 Palestinians have been killed in the renewed Israeli offensive, taking the overall death toll since the start of the war to 50,886.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures.
Lebanese foreign minister discusses reforms, weapons control with Saudi ambassador to Beirut
- Youssef Rajji and Waleed Al-Bukhari consider latest developments in Lebanon and the Middle East
- Al-Bukhari confirms the Kingdom’s full support for the reform process in Lebanon
BEIRUT: The Lebanese minister of foreign affairs reassured Saudi Ambassador Waleed Al-Bukhari that Beirut is committed to financial reforms and restricting the possession of weapons outside the state’s control.
Youssef Rajji met with Al-Bukhari in Beirut on Thursday to discuss the latest developments in Lebanon and the Middle East
Rajji said that Lebanon is committed to implementing the necessary economic, financial, and administrative reforms and ensure that weapons are held exclusively by the state. He said this policy will “put Lebanon on the trail of recovery and advancement,” the National News Agency reported.
He expressed gratitude to the Saudi leadership for supporting Lebanon and its people and said that relations between Riyadh and Beirut have reinstated Lebanon to its rightful place among its Arab neighbors.
Al-Bukhari reaffirmed the Kingdom’s full support for Lebanon’s reform process, which is led by President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and the government formed in February.
Killed Gaza medic’s mother says he ‘loved helping people’
- Rifaat Radwan, a medic from the Palestine Red Crescent Society, was one of 15 killed in an attck by Israel that has sparked outrage
- His family describe their sorrow at losing their son said being a medic 'was his calling'
GAZA: Umm Rifaat Radwan, the mother of a Gaza medic killed alongside 14 colleagues by Israeli soldiers, had hoped her son’s body would not be among those retrieved after the attack.
Rifaat Radwan was part of a team of medics and rescuers from the Palestine Red Crescent Society and Gaza’s civil defense agency who were shot dead on March 23 near Rafah as they responded to calls for help after an Israeli air strike.
Their deaths sparked international condemnation and renewed scrutiny over the risks aid workers face in Gaza, where war has raged since Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel triggered Israel’s military campaign.
Israel’s army chief, Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, has ordered an investigation into the March 23 incident.
The bodies of the 15 emergency personnel were discovered buried in the sand days later, and were recovered in two separate operations, the United Nations and the Red Crescent said.
“They began pulling them out two by two” from a hole, Umm Rifaat, 48, told AFP, describing how the bodies were retrieved from what rescuers called a “mass grave.”
“I thought maybe he wasn’t among them — perhaps he had been detained. I even prostrated after the afternoon prayer in gratitude.
“Then my husband told me that Rifaat had been found inside the hole,” she said.
The 23-year-old Rifaat and his family hailed from Rafah, but had been displaced during the war to the central Gazan city of Deir el-Balah.
On March 23, he and the 14 others were killed in the Tal Al-Sultan area near Rafah, in what the sole survivor of the attack, Mundhir Abed, described as a violent ambush by Israeli forces.
Abed told AFP earlier that the team was shot dead by Israeli soldiers in the early morning.
Umm Rifaat, wearing a long black abaya and veil exposing only her eyes, spoke with quiet composure as she recalled the moment her worst fears were confirmed.
Some of the bodies recovered by rescuers had been handcuffed, according to the Red Crescent, but an Israeli military official denied this.
On Thursday, government spokesman David Mencer repeated Israel’s claim that “six Hamas terrorists” were among the dead.
“What were Hamas terrorists doing in ambulances?” he asked.
The Israeli attack appears to have occurred in two phases.
Rifaat himself partly captured video and audio of the second assault on his convoy of ambulances and a firetruck before he was killed.
The Israeli military official told journalists that soldiers who were in the area received a report about a convoy “moving in the dark in a suspicious way toward them” without headlights, prompting them to fire at the vehicles from a distance.
“They thought they had an encounter with terrorists,” the official said.
But Rifaat’s video, released by the Red Crescent, contradicted this account.
The footage from the phone found on Rifaat’s body shows ambulances moving with their headlights and emergency lights clearly switched on.
“He proved his innocence with his own hands, that he is innocent in the face of the (Israeli) army’s allegations,” Rifaat’s mother said.
“What happened to them is beyond the mind’s comprehension. It is unacceptable by any measure — legal, religious or human.”
Speaking to AFP from the displaced family’s makeshift shelter in Deir el-Balah, Umm Rifaat scrolled through photos of her son on her phone.
Her husband recalled the passion with which Rifaat worked as a paramedic.
“Every day he came home from work with his clothes stained in blood,” Anwar Radwan said, adding that his son had volunteered to do the job after the Gaza war erupted in October 2023.
“He never sought a salary — this was rather a calling he loved with all his blood and soul. What drove him was simply his humanity,” Rifaat’s father said.
“He loved helping people,” added Umm Rifaat.
His father saw Rifaat’s body and told Umm Rifaat that their son’s face had been “deformed.”
She chose not to see the body, preferring instead to preserve her memory of him as he was in life.
“He was like the moon — handsome and fair-skinned,” Umm Rifaat said.
Kurds to push for federal system in post-Assad Syria
- Kurdish parties agree on federalism as common political vision, sources tell Reuters
QAMISHLI: Syrian Kurds are set to demand a federal system in post-Assad Syria that would allow regional autonomy and security forces, a senior Kurdish official told Reuters, doubling down on a decentralized vision opposed by the interim president.
The demand for federal rule has gathered momentum as alarm spread through Syria’s minorities over last month’s mass killings of Alawites, while Kurdish groups have accused interim President Ahmed Al-Sharaa and his Islamist group of setting the wrong course for the new Syria and monopolising power.
Rival Syrian Kurdish parties, including the dominant faction in the Kurdish-run northeast, agreed on a common political vision — including federalism — last month, Kurdish sources said. They have yet to officially unveil it. Kurdish-led groups took control of roughly a quarter of Syrian territory during the 14-year civil war. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, backed by the US, last month signed a deal with Damascus on merging Kurdish-led governing bodies and security forces with the central government.
While committed to that deal, Kurdish officials have objected to the way Syria’s governing Islamists are shaping the transition from Bashar Assad’s rule, saying they are failing to respect Syria’s diversity despite promises of inclusivity.
Badran Jia Kurd, a senior official in the Kurdish-led administration, told Reuters that all Kurdish factions had agreed on a “common political vision” which emphasizes the need for “a federal, pluralistic, democratic parliamentary system.”
His written statements in response to questions from Reuters mark the first time an official from the Kurdish-led administration has confirmed the federalism goal since the Kurdish parties agreed on it last month.
The Kurdish-led administration has for years steered clear of the word “federalism” in describing its goals, instead calling for decentralization. Syria’s Kurds say their goal is autonomy within Syria — not independence.
Sharaa has declared his opposition to a federal system, telling The Economist in January that it does not have popular acceptance and is not in Syria’s best interests.
The Kurds, mainly Sunni Muslims, speak a language related to Farsi and live mostly in a mountainous region straddling the borders of Armenia, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkiye. In Iraq, they have their own parliament, government and security forces.
Jia Kurd said the fundamental issue for Syria was “to preserve the administrative, political, and cultural specificity of each region” which would require “local legislative councils within the region, executive bodies to manage the region’s affairs, and internal security forces affiliated with them.”
This should be set out in Syria’s constitutional framework, he added.
Neighbouring Turkiye, an ally of Sharaa, sees Syria’s main Kurdish group, the Democratic Union Party, and its affiliates as a security threat because of their links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which, until a recently declared ceasefire, fought a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.
Last month’s meeting brought the PYD together with the Kurdish National Council (ENKS), a rival Syrian Kurdish group established with backing from one of Iraq’s main Kurdish parties, the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) led by the Barzani family. The KDP has good ties with Turkiye.
ENKS leader Suleiman Oso said he expected the joint Kurdish vision to be announced at a conference by the end of April. He said developments in Syria since Assad’s ouster in December had led many Syrians to see the federal system as the “optimal solution.” He cited attacks on Alawites, resistance to central rule within the Druze minority, and the new government’s constitutional declaration, which the Kurdish-led administration said was at odds with Syria’s diversity.
Hundreds of Alawites were killed in western Syria in March in revenge attacks which began after Islamist-led authorities said their security forces came under attack by militants loyal to Assad, an Alawite. Sharaa, an Al-Qaeda leader before he cut ties to the group in 2016, has said those responsible will be punished, including his own allies if necessary. The constitutional declaration gave him broad powers, enshrined Islamic law as the main source of legislation, and declared Arabic as Syria’s official language, with no mention of Kurdish.
“We believe that the optimal solution to preserve Syria’s unity is a federal system, as Syria is a country of multiple ethnicities, religions, and sects,” said Oso.
“When we go to Damascus, we will certainly present our views and demands.”
