The Government of Iran wants to approve the controversial veil law behind closed doors and without public debate

He government of iran seeks to urgently approve and behind closed doors the new veil lawwhich would toughen the penalties for the lack of use of the Islamic garment, in a small committee and not in a plenary session of Parliament to "prevent a movement against the hijab".

The Iranian Parliament has approved this Sunday to refer the "Bill of Support to the Culture of Chastity and Hijab" to a judicial and cultural commission with 175 votes in favor, 49 against and 5 abstentions from the total of 238 deputies present, according to the Icana hemicycle website.

The project will be studied and voted on by said commission, which has the capacity to approve the project "on a trial basis" for a period of time between three and five years, something that the country's Constitution allows in its article 85.

Thus, the Executive avoids presenting the law before the 290 parliamentarians and the public debate that this entails, in addition to reviewing the numerous amendments that have been presented, months before the parliamentary elections in March.

The bill, which has 70 articles, establishes punishments such as fines, jail terms of up to five years, the confiscation of cars and the ban on driving, as well as deductions from salary, employment benefits or the ban on accessing banking services. .

Law vs. Motion

The president of the judicial committee of Parliament, which will study the law, Mousa Ghazanfaribadi, stated today that "if sins related to chastity and the hijab occur every day, it is because of the delay in the approval of this law."

Another of the promoters of the law, the conservative Hossein Ali Haji Deligani, argued that it is necessary to approve the text in this way because "we see that the situation has no limits, it is getting worse. We have to prevent a movement against the hijab."

However, parliamentarians such as Gholamreza Nouri Qezeljeh expressed their rejection of the legislative project, considering that it focuses too much on "punishing" the lack of use of the veil, which entails "dangers."

Almost a year since Amini's death

That anti-hijab movement actually began on September 16 last year, after young Mahsa Amini died after being detained by the so-called Morality Police in Tehran, sparking strong protests for months across the country.

Since then, many Iranians have stopped wearing the forced veil, a garment that represents for them the visible form of discrimination they suffer, which goes far beyond having to cover their heads.

The Iranian authorities have resorted to various methods to reimpose the use of the garment with the return to the country's streets of the feared morality police and punishments such as cleaning corpses or scrubbing public buildings.

The president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisí, affirmed this week that "this removal of the veil is going to definitely end" and maintained that women who do not cover themselves are "unconscious" who must be "aware".