Hijabs off... Khamenei out!

As images of women in Iran holding their hijabs aloft spread on social media, the whole world looked at these images as sign that the Iranians will not stop until they get the Ayatollah regime out of Iran.

Many will view their behaviour as religious disobedience but the reality is that the Iranians are going on a civil disobedience in the hope that they will eventually force the Ayatollahs to step down.

Women in Tehran went to the streets, removed the hijab and this sent a very crucial message out to the world. Iranian women are fighting against the most visible symbol of oppression. After all, the hijab was imposed on them and in their minds, it is associated with political oppression, no matter what the hijab represents to us as Muslims.

Under Iran’s Islamic law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair with a scarf, known as a hijab, and wear long, loose-fitting clothes. Violators are publicly admonished, fined or arrested.

These women went to the streets to say enough to the Ayatollah regime and the first sign of defiance was to remove the scarf from over their heads.

Iranian police said on Thursday that 29 women who took part in the campaign had been arrested in Iran for protesting against the country’s compulsory hijab rules.

This reminded me of Iran in 1979 when the hijab was imposed and young men were arrested on the streets for wearing jeans. Women who had nail polish were harassed and anything associated with personal freedom was rejected by the Islamic regime and people who once lived free to choose what to do, overnight became a population that had to now be dictated how to live their lives.

The removal of hijab trend picked up momentum after video and images were posted online of one woman waving a white scarf on a stick in December - a day before demonstrations erupted against economic conditions in eastern Iran, a clear sign that the Iranians are not willing to stop and will continue to protest. 

Unrest quickly spread across the country and the focus broadened as protesters began calling for Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, to step down. 

Although the wider anti-government demonstrations have ended, women across Iran are fed up and continue to protest against the interference of religion in their personal lives”, say Iranian human rights activist. Once something is imposed, even when religiously right, people tend to refuse and this is why Iranians refuse anything religion associated. 

These people are not fighting against a piece of cloth, they are fighting against the ideology behind compulsory hijab

And their campaign started three years ago to raise their voices against one form of oppression practised against them. 

The same so-called Islamic regime that under the umbrella of Islam imposed the hijab, invested the income of the country into weapons and exporting their ideologies and left the people of Iran live a poor life, incapable of living a decent standard of life. Iranians who could afford leaving Iran, either left seeking new lives in Europe, the UK, US and Canada or sought political refugee abroad. 

It’s about time for the Iranians to step up and civil disobedience in different forms may be the only way for the Ayatollah regime to finally step down after 39 years of the most miserable and disgraceful phase in the history of the Persian civilisation.