Iran’s judiciary chief has threatened to prosecute “without mercy” women who appear in public unveiled, Reuters, quoting Iranian media, reported on Saturday.
Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning comes on the heels of an interior ministry statement on Thursday that reinforced the government’s mandatory hijab law, the agency reported.
“Unveiling is tantamount to enmity with [our] values,” Ejei was quoted as saying by several news sites. Those “who commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and would be “prosecuted without mercy,” he said, without saying what the punishment would entail.
Ejei, Iran’s chief justice, said law enforcement officers were “obliged to refer obvious crimes and any kind of abnormality that is against the religious law and occurs in public to judicial authorities”.
A growing number of Iranian women have been ditching their veils since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman in the custody of the “morality police” last September. Mahsa Amini had been detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule, Reuters said.
Government forces violently put down months of nationwide revolt unleashed by her death.