Iran headscarf protest: Indian Muslim body slams murderous enforcement of authoritarian law

Californian Kurds hold a candlelight vigil to honour the memory of Mahsa Amini in front of the Federal Building in Los Angeles

In a world where everything and everybody is under scrutiny, thanks to mobile cameras and social media, news disseminators often become the news themselves. As anti-hijab protests rage on the streets of Iran, a tweet from prominent CNN journalist and television news anchor, Christiane Amanpour, sparked a frenzy of reports. Amanpour said that she was scheduled to interview Iran President Ebrahim Raisi in New York, on the sidelines of the UN Assembly.

The president's aide reportedly said that Amanpour must wear a hijab (the Islamic headscarf) while interviewing Raisi. Amanpour declined, saying this was New York. The interview was subsequently scrapped. The piece of head covering is one of the most charged political symbols in recent times.

Iranian women are defying death as many of them refuse to wear the hijab any longer. This is no longer a piece of cloth for these women, this is control, taking away their agency and a question of human rights.

The aide of (left) Iran President Ebrahim Raisi reportedly said (right) Christiane Amanpour must wear a hijab while interviewing him. Pics/AFP

Now, the Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD), a pan-India body, with two Mumbai founders, Javed Anand and Feroze Mithiborwala, in a statement, has strongly condemned the Iranian State's "obscurantist, authoritarian laws and their murderous enforcement, as also the denial of the citizens' right to protest." The statement read, "In this third decade of the 21st century, it's inhuman and barbaric to kill a fellow human being merely for not covering her head." The IMSD stand with 95 signatories as supporters questioned what they call "the hypocrisy of India's Muslim clergy in not supporting the Iranian women's right to choose, an argument it puts forward in the context of the ongoing hijab controversy in India."

Truly horrendous

The IMSD added, "The world is witnessing a horrendous turn of events in Iran where state atrocity has caused the custodial murder of a 22-year-old woman, #MahsaAmini, just for taking off her head cover. It is also shocking that those protesting the murder by peacefully defying the mandatory head covering are being subjected to violence, humiliation and arrests on the streets by the police."

Both Anand and Mithiborwala though say that there is a sliver of sunshine amid the gloom. That is, "the heart-warming active support of young Iranian men who are opposing both archaic traditional practices and State atrocities."

In this epochal moment, "the Indian clergy and conservative Muslims in general, who support mandatory head covering for Muslim women citing the principle of right to choose attire, must be questioned whether they support both: Iranian women's right to choose or refuse head coverings," the IMSD said.

The organisation added, "It will be hypocritical of all those who tom-tom this liberal democratic argument that ‘forced removal of burqa, niqab, hijab is against the basic human rights of a woman', but who do not come forward in support of Iranian women of different faiths who are forced to cover their heads in consonance with Islamic Shariah practices of Iran. It is to be noted here that in Iran the rule of mandatory head covering is applicable to Muslims and non-Muslims alike."

"The IMSD calls upon the civil society in India to challenge the hypocrisy of those religious power elite who choose the liberal principles of Indian constitution as per their fundamentalist and misogynistic conveniences, while they remain tight lipped when these principles are flouted against the progressive aspirations of the citizens in Islamic States," it concludes.