The Iranian regime is prosecuting a woman for “disrespecting” her headscarf after she was seen removing the religious garment and throwing it on the ground at a public engineers’ meeting.
A video of the woman was posted online over the weekend. The footage showed the woman, identified as Zeinab Kazempour, discarding her headscarf and throwing it on the ground as she walked out of a meeting to elect new board members of the Iran Construction Engineers Organization.
The name of this magnificent woman is Zeinab Kazempour. Let it thunder across continents.
— New School of the Anthropocene (@NAnthropocene) February 18, 2023
According to a Twitter post showing the video, the woman threw away her headscarf to protest the decision to block her from being elected to the board for her “improper” hijab.
Zeinab Kazempour threw away her headscarf and walked out of a meeting to elect new board members of the Construction Engineers Organization in Tehran to protest being blocked from being elected because of her “improper” hijab. #Iran #Mahsa_Amini#زینب_کاظمپور pic.twitter.com/W7YtcTMluX
— IranHumanRights.org (@ICHRI) February 18, 2023
But Iranian news agency Tasnim denies the reports, and the woman is now being prosecuted over a seeming act of defiance connected to ongoing mass demonstrations challenging the regime.
“Legal proceedings have been launched against a woman who disrespected her headscarf during the election for the Tehran branch of the Iran Construction Engineering Organization,” Tasnim reported.
“It was falsely claimed that this individual was disqualified (from the branch election) for not wearing the headscarf,” they added without further details.
Zeinab Kazempour’s defiant act of civil disobedience on the Islamic Republic’s own stage.#WomenLifeFreedom #IranianRevolution pic.twitter.com/X9YBi7dAY4
— NUFDI (@NUFDIran) February 17, 2023
The Islamic Republic, which forces women to wear hijabs under its harsh, ultraconservative interpretation of Islam and Sharia law, has struggled to suppress months of mass protests seeking to overthrow the theocracy.
The demonstrations notably started when a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died under police custody in September last year after being arrested for improperly wearing her hijab.
Since the protests, thousands of women have been filmed burning their headscarves or even cutting their hair in defiance of Iran’s strict religious laws. The phrase “Women, Life, Freedom” has become the slogan of the resistance.
Iranian security forces have brutally cracked down on dissent, with 500 demonstrators being killed and 20,000 people imprisoned. Four protesters have been sentenced to death in “kangaroo courts” where defendants were not given the right to a fair trial.
Alarming reports also suggest that Iran is on the brink of becoming a nuclear power, with a Bloomberg report saying that UN inspectors have found 84% enriched uranium during an inspection of nuclear sites, just 6% short of the threshold needed to create nuclear weapons and the highest level recorded so far.
