Behind the Headlines/January 7

In tonight’s program of Behind the Headlines we will look at the anniversary of the day when back in 1936 the Great Reza Shah issued a decree and banned the wearing of all forms of Islamic hijab by Iranian women.

Khomeini’s religious regime has been against whatever modernity and achievements that the Reza Shah rule brought for Iran a century ago.

However, the Iranian women, especially their younger generation, have not remained silent and despite all the repressive measures of the regime, have been fighting for their civil and human rights and on many occasion shave removed their hijab in public to show their opposition to this symbol of gender repression by the Islamic republic regime.

We discuss these issues tonight with our special guest Ms Maryam Shariatmadari who removed her hijab in Tehran’s Daughters of Revolution Street and was later forced to live in exile in Ankara, Turkey.

Ms Maryam Shariatmadari:

It is a bit hard to judge about the reaction of the Iranian society of 80 years ago when Reza Shah banned the wearing of hijab.

We need to study the reaction of the educated elite of that time to find out more about what the Iranian society really wanted from the Reza Shah’s rule.

He had travelled to Turkey and witnessed how the Turkish women had removed their hijab and became involved in the building of their new society and on his return he had decided to implement the same reform in Iran.

However, if we look back a bit further, we notice than even before Reza Shah’s decision the Iranian women had actively participated in the Constitutional Revolution and many of them had already removed their hijab.

It is a matter of shame that in this day and age the Iranian regime still insists on repressing our women’s rights through the issue of compulsory hijab.