Iran Chides Police for Using Force Against Female Veil Protester

(Bloomberg) -- Iran's Interior Ministry chided police for using force against a woman protesting the mandatory headscarf, a rare conciliatory gesture toward women challenging a primary tenet of the Islamic Republic's belief system.

The woman, filmed in a widely viewed video posted on Twitter, stood bareheaded on top of a tall box, brandishing her white scarf before passersby. The video then shows a man dressed in a police uniform shoving her to the ground.

“Dealing with infractions should be with full respect of moral and legal rules,” Interior Ministry spokesman Salman Samani said Sunday, according to the official Islamic Republic News Agency. “No one has a license to act against the law even in the role of an officer dealing with crimes.”

His comments are the latest expression of officials' growing sensitivity to undercurrents of discontent in Iranian society since anti-government protests erupted late last year. They also reflect the showdown between Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, who has criticized strict social norms and the policing of Iranian youth, and some hardline opponents who argue that easing lifestyle rules could erode the foundations of a pious society.

Since the 1979 revolution that brought Muslim clerics to power, women in Iran have been required to cover themselves in public with headscarves and coats. Although women's clothing has become more fashionable and colorful over the years, public opposition to a state-mandated dress code has grown. The brandishing of headgear on busy streets and capturing the act on video for social media is a new form of protest that's gained momentum in recent weeks.

“The women of our country are flowing like a river, do not throw them down, do not put them in jail,” prominent human rights lawyer Nasrin Sotoudeh wrote on her Facebook page on Thursday after the video was posted on social media. “They haven't committed a crime, they want the decision on their clothing to be ceded to them.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Ladane Nasseri in Dubai at lnasseri@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alaa Shahine at asalha@bloomberg.net, Amy Teibel, Christopher Elser

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