Tehran: Women in Iran will be banned from taking the Mashhad metro if they are not wearing a headscarf, local media reported on Wednesday.
The deputy prosecutor of Mashhad wrote to the city’s governor, “demanding him to prevent women who do not wear the Islamic headscarf from accessing the metro,” the Young Journalists Club (YJC), a news agency affiliated with state television, said, publishing a copy of the June 26 letter.
As per media reports, the letter said that if officials did not implement the ban by July 6, “they will be prosecuted.”
Many of them have pushed the boundaries over the past two decades by allowing head coverings to slip back and reveal more hair, especially in Tehran and other major cities.
On Tuesday, July 5, the authorities in Iran closed three coffee shops in the central city of Qom because female customers were not wearing their headscarves.
On Friday, June 24, Iranian police arrested several teenage girls in the southern city of Shiraz after they removed their head coverings during a skateboarding event, along with organizers.
Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, Iranian law has obligated all women, regardless of nationality or religious belief, to cover their bodies with loose-fitting clothing and veil their heads in public.
