Iran hesitates to enforce headscarf rules amid war, economic pressures

Iran is hesitating to restore strict headscarf enforcement amid war, U.S. attacks, sanctions and economic pressure. Hard-liners are pushing for a clampdown, but top leaders warn against provoking public backlash. Women in Tehran have continued testing dress restrictions, and authorities have so far limited enforcement.

The 2022 crackdown on protests after Mahsa Amini’s death killed more than 500 people and led to thousands of arrests.

A hard-line newspaper called removal of headscarves a security threat and said judiciary chief Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei had called for prudent and urgent action.

The new head of the Basij, Hossein Taeb, told commanders the headscarf issue should be handled without harming internal cohesion.

Singer Hiwa Seyfizade said in an Instagram video that she had been sentenced to four years in prison after performing a public concert in Tehran last year.

Published Sep 17, 2026 4:06 am KST

A woman walks around Tajrish commercial district without wearing her mandatory Islamic headscarf in northern Tehran, Iran, Apr. 29, 2023. AP-Yonhap

Women sit at outdoor cafes without headscarves and wearing crop tops. Men in shorts and women in leggings exercise together in parks. At sidewalk concerts, women stop to dance and literally let their hair down.

The scenes from the Iranian capital of Tehran, shared in social media videos, point to how dramatically enforcement of social restrictions has eased in the Islamic Republic in recent years.

That's in part because of the mass protests that erupted after the Sept. 16, 2022, death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by morality police for allegedly not wearing her headscarf properly. Security forces crushed the protests with a crackdown that killed more than 500 people, and thousands were arrested. But to keep the peace, authorities backed off on enforcement of the rules mandating the hijab, or headscarf, and modest dress for women.

The question now is whether that can be reversed.

Hard-liners in Iran’s ruling establishment increasingly demand a clampdown on women’s dressing habits. But top leaders caution against triggering a public backlash at a time of war, when U.S. attacks, sanctions and a naval blockade are pushing the crippled economy toward collapse.

“We can’t enter into that front as we ought to because of wartime conditions,” Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, a politician and father-in-law of Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei, said last week in public remarks about headscarves.

An activist and former political prisoner who lives in Tehran, Pouran Nazemi said disagreements about the hijab became more acute after the war started. “They are afraid of protests,” she said in a phone call.

Women have pushed the boundaries

A university student in her early 20s who lives in an affluent northern area of the capital said she doesn’t wear a headscarf but wears outfits that cover most of her arms and legs — and “I feel like I am wearing too much.”

Her friends, she said, go out in tops that show their bare shoulders and shorts that stop at the knee. She spoke with The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity out of security fears.

At its strictest, Iran's ruling theocracy requires women to wear a scarf covering the hair and loose-fitting clothes that hide the entire body. Religious police in the streets have fined, harassed or arrested women skirting the rules. But over the past decade, many women challenged the limits, moving the scarf to show more hair and wearing more closely fitting clothes.

Since 2022, many stopped wearing the headscarf entirely. Even more recently, women in some parts of Tehran have bared their arms, legs or even stomachs.

In a piece published Wednesday, four years after Amini’s death, a hard-line newspaper overseen by the supreme leader said the removal of headscarves had grown into “promoting nudity and permissiveness” and called it a “security threat.” The report in Kayhan added that the judiciary chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei, had called for “prudent and urgent action” on headscarves.

Hard-liners hold nightly rallies across the country attended by women in black conservative robes and head coverings. But even there, a few women without headscarves can be seen.

For hard-liners, it’s gone too far

Hijab rules have become a lightning-rod issue dividing pragmatists from hard-liners among Iran’s ruling theocracy, much like questions of whether to negotiate with the U.S. or escalate the war.

Many of the calls for enforcing headscarves have come from figures linked with the supreme leader’s office, though it is not known if they reflect Khamenei’s stance. The supreme leader has not appeared in public — nor released any audio or video recordings — since succeeding his father, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who was killed by an Israeli strike on Feb. 28. The elder Khamenei long called for firm enforcement on the hijab.

In a sermon on Aug. 28, a top cleric in the eastern shrine city of Mashhad portrayed women without the hijab and others he described as irreligious as a domestic force that the U.S. could use against Iran. Ahmad Alamolhoda, who is the city’s Friday prayer leader and the supreme leader’s representative in the province, called on officials to use “all their resources” to curb such behavior.

Some conservative figures and media have blamed the pragmatist President Masoud Pezeshkian for preventing a stricter hijab policy.

“As soon as we say anything, they say there’s a war, let’s not make trouble,” Abdol Hossein Khosrowpanah told reporters last week after a meeting with officials about headscarves. Khosrowpanah heads a state body overseeing universities and cultural institutions that is controlled by the supreme leader.

Authorities want to keep ‘unity’ in wartime

Authorities have briefly shuttered some Tehran cafes and public places for violations of hijab rules, but the effort has not expanded.

Iranian leaders are cautious, particularly in the face of intensified U.S. sanctions they say aim to foment popular unrest. In January, protests over a currency crash snowballed into nationwide marches calling the Islamic Republic’s overthrow. The ensuing crackdown killed thousands.

Women are finding they can pass with their hair uncovered even in places where they long had to be the most wary.

One Tehran resident in her mid-30s said she recently went without a headscarf on an errand to a government office, where hijab rules are normally strongly enforced. She spoke to AP by phone on condition of anonymity because of security fears.

Three women in Tehran contacted by AP said security forces hadn’t commented on their lack of a hijab while going through street checkpoints, which often include members of the feared Basij, the all-volunteer force that enforces morality rules and is used to crush protests.

The new head of the Basij, hard-line cleric Hossein Taeb, a former intelligence chief, cautioned a gathering of commanders last week that the headscarf issue should be addressed in a way that does not harm “internal cohesion,” according to the semiofficial news agency Mehr.

That echoed a statement by Khamenei last month that prioritized the war struggle above other issues.

Women are still targeted on morals-related charges. In a video posted to her Instagram page on Aug. 19, singer Hiwa Seyfizade said she had been sentenced to four years in prison after performing a public concert in the capital last year.

The hijab has been a pillar of clerical rule

Turning points in Iran’s modern history have often linked with the hijab issue. The Iranian monarchy forced women to remove headscarves in its drive to Westernize society in the 1930s. After the shah’s overthrow in 1979, the mandatory hijab became a defining tenet of clerical rule.

“Women who don’t put it on are, in a way, carrying out civil disobedience toward the government,” Sedigheh Vasmaghi, a lawyer and former political prisoner, said by phone from northern Iran.

The deaths of Amini and other women targeted for dress violations prompted Vasmaghi to discard the headscarf in 2023, after decades of wearing it. Vasmaghi is a scholar of Islamic jurisprudence and has written widely on women in Islam.

“Taking off the headscarf wasn’t an easy thing, especially for a person like myself,” she explained. She was detained in 2024 after openly arguing that there was no basis for the mandatory hijab in Islam.

Vasmaghi said she fears authorities could try a new crackdown after the war. But she noted that past attempts have failed.

“People aren’t going to go back to how it was,” the activist Nazemi said. “They aren’t capable of doing it.”

在战争、美国袭击、制裁和经济压力的多重压力下，伊朗对恢复严格的头巾强制令犹豫不决。强硬派力主严厉打击，但高层领导人警告不要激起公众的强烈反对。德黑兰的女性仍在试探着装限制，而当局迄今为止也只是有限地执行这些限制。

2022 年，玛莎·阿米尼去世后，当局镇压抗议活动，造成 500 多人死亡，数千人被捕。

一家强硬派报纸称摘掉头巾是一种安全威胁，并表示司法部长戈拉姆侯赛因·莫赫塞尼-埃杰伊呼吁采取谨慎而紧急的行动。

新任巴斯基领导人侯赛因·塔伊布告诉指挥官们，处理头巾问题时应该避免损害内部凝聚力。

歌手希瓦·塞菲扎德在一段 Instagram 视频中表示，她去年在德黑兰举行公开演唱会后被判处四年监禁。

发布于2026年9月17日凌晨4:06（韩国标准时间）

2023年4月29日，在伊朗德黑兰北部塔吉里什商业区，一名女子未佩戴伊斯兰教规定的头巾。美联社-韩联社

女人们坐在露天咖啡馆里，不戴头巾，穿着露脐上衣。男人们穿着短裤，女人们穿着紧身裤，一起在公园里锻炼。在人行道上的音乐会上，女人们停下来跳舞，彻底放松身心。

社交媒体视频中分享的伊朗首都德黑兰的景象表明，近年来，伊朗伊斯兰共和国的社会限制措施已大幅放松。

部分原因是由于2022年9月16日22岁的玛莎·阿米尼（Mahsa Amini）之死引发的大规模抗议。阿米尼因被指控未正确佩戴头巾而被道德警察拘留。安全部队镇压了抗议活动，造成500多人死亡，数千人被捕。但为了维持和平，当局放松了对女性佩戴头巾和着装得体规定的执行力度。

现在的问题是，这种情况是否可以逆转。

伊朗执政集团中的强硬派日益要求限制女性的着装。但高层领导人警告说，在战争时期，美国的袭击、制裁和海上封锁正将本已疲弱的经济推向崩溃边缘，此时限制女性着装可能会引发公众的强烈反对。

“由于战争形势，我们不能像应该的那样进入那个前线，”政治家、最高领袖穆杰塔巴·哈梅内伊的岳父戈拉姆·阿里·哈达德·阿德尔上周在公开场合就头巾问题发表讲话时说道。

居住在德黑兰的活动家兼前政治犯普兰·纳泽米表示，战争爆发后，关于头巾的争议变得更加尖锐。“他们害怕抗议，”她在电话中说道。

女性不断突破界限

一位二十出头的女大学生住在首都北部一个富裕地区，她说她不戴头巾，但穿着遮盖住大部分手臂和腿的衣服——“我觉得我穿得太多了。”

她说，她的朋友们经常穿着露肩上衣和及膝短裤出门。出于安全考虑，她匿名接受了美联社的采访。

在伊朗，最严格的宗教统治要求女性必须佩戴头巾遮盖头发，并穿着宽松的衣服遮住全身。街头的宗教警察会对违反规定的女性处以罚款、骚扰甚至逮捕。但在过去十年里，许多女性开始挑战这些限制，她们将头巾的位置调整得更低，露出更多头发，并穿着更加贴身的衣服。

自2022年以来，许多人完全停止佩戴头巾。更近期的例子是，德黑兰部分地区的女性甚至露出手臂、腿部或腹部。

在阿米尼去世四年后的周三，一份由最高领袖监管的强硬派报纸发表文章称，摘除头巾已经演变成“宣扬裸露和放纵”，并称之为“安全威胁”。《凯汉报》的报道还指出，司法部长戈拉姆侯赛因·莫赫塞尼-埃杰伊呼吁就头巾问题采取“谨慎而紧急的行动”。

强硬派人士每晚在全国各地举行集会，参加集会的女性身穿黑色保守长袍，头戴头巾。但即便在集会上，也能看到一些没有戴头巾的女性。

对强硬派来说，这太过分了。

头巾规定已成为伊朗执政神权国家中务实派和强硬派之间产生分歧的敏感问题，就像是否与美国谈判或升级战争的问题一样。

许多要求强制佩戴头巾的呼声都来自与最高领袖办公室有关的人士，但目前尚不清楚这些呼声是否反映了哈梅内伊的立场。自其父阿亚图拉·阿里·哈梅内伊于2月28日被以色列空袭身亡后，最高领袖哈梅内伊一直没有公开露面，也没有发布任何音频或视频记录。老哈梅内伊长期以来一直呼吁严格执行佩戴头巾的规定。

8月28日，伊朗东部圣城马什哈德的一位高级神职人员在布道中，将不戴头巾的女性以及其他被他称为“不信教”的人描述为美国可以利用的国内力量，用来对付伊朗。这位名叫艾哈迈德·阿拉莫霍达的神职人员是该市周五聚礼的领袖，也是伊朗最高领袖在该省的代表。他呼吁官员们动用“一切资源”来遏制这种行为。

一些保守派人士和媒体指责务实的总统马苏德·佩泽什基安阻止了更严格的头巾政策。

“我们一开口，他们就说要打仗了，咱们别惹事，”阿卜杜勒·侯赛因·霍斯罗帕纳上周在与官员们就头巾问题会面后告诉记者。霍斯罗帕纳领导着一个负责监管大学和文化机构的国家机构，该机构受最高领袖控制。

当局希望在战时保持“团结”。

当局曾短暂关闭德黑兰的一些咖啡馆和公共场所，原因是这些场所违反了头巾规定，但这种做法并未扩大范围。

伊朗领导人态度谨慎，尤其是在美国加大制裁力度的情况下，他们认为这些制裁旨在煽动民众骚乱。今年1月，因货币暴跌引发的抗议活动迅速演变为全国范围的游行，民众呼吁推翻伊朗伊斯兰共和国政权。随后的镇压行动造成数千人死亡。

女性们发现，即使在她们过去必须格外小心的地方，她们也可以不戴头巾。

一位30多岁的德黑兰居民表示，她最近去政府部门办事时没有戴头巾，而政府部门通常严格执行头巾佩戴规定。出于安全考虑，她要求匿名接受美联社电话采访。

美联社联系到的德黑兰三名女性表示，她们在通过街头检查站时，安全部队没有对她们没有戴头巾一事发表评论。这些检查站通常包括令人恐惧的巴斯基民兵组织成员，该组织是一支完全由志愿者组成的部队，负责执行道德规则并镇压抗议活动。

据半官方通讯社梅尔通讯社报道，巴斯基新任领导人、强硬派宗教人士侯赛因·塔伊布（前情报局长）上周在一次指挥官会议上告诫说，处理头巾问题的方式不应损害“内部凝聚力”。

这与哈梅内伊上个月的声明相呼应，该声明将战争斗争置于其他问题之上。

女性仍然会因道德相关的指控而成为攻击目标。歌手希瓦·塞菲扎德 (Hiwa Seyfizade) 在8月19日发布于其Instagram页面的一段视频中表示，她去年在首都举行了一场公开演唱会后被判处四年监禁。

头巾一直是宗教统治的支柱。

伊朗现代史上的转折点往往与头巾问题息息相关。20世纪30年代，伊朗君主制为了推行社会西化，强迫女性摘除头巾。1979年沙阿被推翻后，强制佩戴头巾成为神权统治的一项重要原则。

“从某种意义上说，不戴头巾的女性是在对政府进行公民不服从运动，”律师兼前政治犯塞迪格·瓦斯马吉在伊朗北部通过电话说道。

阿米尼和其他因着装违规而遭到迫害的女性的死亡，促使瓦斯马吉在佩戴头巾数十年后，于2023年摘下了头巾。瓦斯马吉是一位伊斯兰法学学者，曾就伊斯兰女性问题撰写过大量文章。

“摘下头巾并不容易，尤其对我这样的人而言，”她解释道。2024年，她因公开宣称伊斯兰教没有强制佩戴头巾的依据而被拘留。

瓦斯马吉表示，她担心战后当局可能会再次采取镇压行动。但她指出，过去的尝试都失败了。

“人们不会再回到过去那种生活了，”活动家纳泽米说。“他们做不到。”