Why does Iran call women protesting the hijab ‘mentally ill’?
14:09 Share

Hi there, this is What in the World from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Gelbart. There's a video on social media of a woman walking around a grey stone university campus in Iran.

She's in her underwear and she's surrounded by students wearing hijabs and black abayas. You might have seen it. After a few minutes, she's arrested and bundled into a van. This video has resonated in Iran and around the world. Many have seen it as an act of defiance against the hijab. But authorities have said that the woman, who was later identified as Ahu Darieh, is mentally ill and she was taken to a psychiatric hospital for treatment.

For weeks, no one knew where she was. Now they say she's been returned to her family and won't face charges. This isn't the first time Iranian police have called women protesting against wearing the hijab sick. So in this episode, you're going to hear more about what this video tells us about women's rights in Iran.

To find out more about this, here in the studio with me is Farinak Amidi, a BBC journalist and presenter. And on Skype, I'm going to be speaking to Azam Jangravi, an activist who also protested against wearing the hijab. Azam fled Iran and now lives in Canada. Hello. Salam, Azam, John. How are you? Salam. How are you? I am good. Thank you. It's a real pleasure to be on this program with you. Great to have you both with us.

Farinak, to start off with, can you give our listeners an overview of what life is like in Iran? Well, as a woman, probably the best way to put it is that you're a second or third class citizen. So you are deprived of many of the rights that men have. And you live in a completely gender segregated society. And that gender segregation starts from a very young age. That is almost six or seven when you start school.

And you're completely gender segregated until you go to university. You want to enter the campus and there are these morality officers standing at the door checking your nails, your face, your socks. They would tell you to show them your socks. You weren't allowed to wear colorful socks or sheer socks.

So every time you wanted to enter the university, you had to go through this tunnel of belittlement, harassment, disrespect. And then you had to go sit in the class, not talk to the boys that were sitting next to you, not look at them. One of the pillars that keeps this gender segregation is the mandatory hijab. Without mandatory hijab, gender segregation wouldn't even mean anything.

think, you know. It is that which allows for this discrimination, systematic discrimination to take place. And that is why many women's rights advocates and women's rights activists call the Islamic Republic a gender apartheid. Those circumstances, that context makes it all the more shocking when this woman stripped down to her underwear, that video that we have been seeing all over social media. Farinak,

What do we know about the video and the woman in it? We don't really know much. The video shows a woman stripped to her underwear, sitting very calmly on the stairs of a campus. Around her, you see frantic morality officers of the university trying to figure out what to do with her. And she just gets up and walks down this boulevard.

at some point in the video, it seems like she takes off her knickers, her panties. But the video is a bit grainy and blurry, so it's not really easy to figure out what she's doing. But then...

An unmarked vehicle appears and there are officers, plainclothed officers, and they brutally chuck her in the car and take her. Later on, we found out her name was Ohudaryoi, but for a few days, we didn't even know if that was her real name. Nobody knew who had taken her and to where.

But then slowly news emerged that she was taken to a mental hospital, but which mental hospital we didn't know. And still it is very sketchy. So the latest we know is that this woman who's called Ohu Daryoi is in an isolated place in a psychiatric hospital.

But it is very interesting because usually in cases like this, the authorities put a lot of pressure. And I'm sure Azzam can actually talk about this because she was under in that situation herself.

The authorities find the family members and they try to put pressure on them to come on state camera and give the narrative of the authorities to come and say, for instance, she was mentally unwell or she's a drug addict or stuff like that. But in this case, we haven't heard anything from the family. We don't even know who her family is, except one, one video of one man that the state-run TV showed him.

and his face was blurred and they claimed that he was her ex-husband saying that please do not circulate her video. She has two children and our reputation is in danger except that we don't have anything else.

So that is a very peculiar situation because it is not usually like that. And I think the authorities have understood that if the identity of the person is verified very quickly, independent journalists will find them, will find their family, and will get the true narrative. And it's...

it can be a headache for authorities because before with Massa Amini, there were these mass protests. Every time something like this happens, if the public understands what the true narrative is, there will be a backlash. So they're trying to stop it and trying to just have their own narrative. And unfortunately, we are seeing that it is their own narrative right now because it's so hard to verify anything else.

You mentioned Masa Amini. She was the woman who died in police custody in 2022 after being arrested for allegedly not wearing the hijab properly. And Farinak, you mentioned how authorities often promote this narrative where when a woman commits an act of protest, they're mentally ill. Azam, I want to ask you about your personal experience of this.

During the wave of protests back in 2018, you climbed onto an electrical transformer box in Tehran. You removed your headscarf and waved it at the crowd. What happened to you after that? First, I went to a police station. One of the issues we women always face is whether your family will support you or not.

And the first person that slapped me in the police station was my brother. Your brother? Yeah, because I posted something on Instagram and my brother said, you have to delete it because of his situation. You know, he was in the system. But, you know, our life are different. But nobody can understand what I'm saying.

The first slap was from my brother, and I said, I don't want to see you again. Then when he didn't do anything on me, they sent me to Wazirat detention.

But half of my family support me and half of them are not. So in the first day, they wanted to me write a confession. And then I said no. The second day, that time my father was in our cottage in north of Tehran. And he

He didn't know what happened on me. The relationship between me and my father is very, very close. My brother said, "Azi, imagine Baba understand your situation. Baba will get heart attack."

What we should say to Baba? He was crying. "Azi, please, they told us if we declare you have a mental issue, they will release you." And I said, "Hamid, am I crazy? Am I psycho?" And he started to cry and said, "No, I know."

What should we do? We want to protect you. I said, no, Hamid, please. And after that, we had a very severe fight on my family. Fortunately, my family didn't announce that I have a mental issue or these things because I didn't. And the second day and the third day, they sent me to...

a forensic center to meet a forensic doctor. The doctor called to someone and said, "She's okay. Why you are talking to write she has a mental issue?" And because my family didn't announce it, and the doctor was very good doctor, I believe that because if he write something, they can said, "Okay, she has a mental issue."

After four days, I went to court. They fired me from work. They seized my driver's license. They didn't allow me to continue my studying. I was studying a Master of Artificial Intelligence and Robotic. I was in the, you know, last semester in the court. They took away my daughter from me. After four days, I went to Evin prison for six days.

And then I released by bail. After three months, they convicted me to three years in prison. Always this is the Taktida of the Islamic Republic that want to say we have a mental issue or our family don't support us. I wanted to add something with this whole mental, labeling you mentally unfit and unwell. They have gone so far to launch clinics

For treating hijabless women, clinics for treating hijabless women, as if being without hijab is a personality disorder. Under the Islamic Republic of Iran, the supreme leader is Ali Khamenei. And this man has come out and said the red line is the hijab.

When he says that, it means that they treat women and their bodily autonomy as a threat against the regime. It's a security issue. So they treat it like that, as if you're almost a terrorist. That is how they treat you. And we see how they treat it as they take away all of your rights, your right to study, your right to work, your right to have a family, your right to have your own child.

And that is why it is so admirable when you see them and what they're doing. This week, a separate video has been circulating of another woman who reacts after being touched by a man on a motorbike. Can you tell me about what happened to her? She's walking down a pavement without her job, chin up, really confident. And this motorbike, this guy on a motorbike just passed by and gropes her.

And she grabs him and starts kicking and beating the guy up. That is not something we are very used to, because I'm sure Azam can also agree with me on this. No, no. Can I say something? This is very right now normal. Right now in the street, we see

see all of women. You can, you know, in the Twitter or some social media. Yeah, Azam, I totally agree with that. Women, I mean, the face of the streets of Iran have changed completely. Family members send me videos of like a day out in a cafe or in a mall. And I'm just like, is this Tehran or is this Isfahan? I mean, it has changed drastically. But

very rarely you see women beating up someone who harassed them. I think this is a new phase because women are just saying, we've had enough of this. I am paying a price. I am risking my life by coming out and walking down a pavement without my hijab. And you groping me, excuse me. I'm not just going to keep quiet. Yeah. And her name is Roshanak Moulayi Alishahi.

And she was arrested. Do we know what happened to her? We know she's in prison. She's in jail. She hasn't been to court or trial yet, but we'll see. I have heard so many examples from this conversation with you, Farinak and Azam about the fight that women keep on fighting for their rights in Iran. And I want to thank you both for coming to join me on the podcast and for giving me information.

an insight into your lives and your life stories and your personal experiences. Thank you so much for sharing them with me. Thanks for having us. It was a pleasure. It was lovely to talk to you as I'm done. Me too. And thank you for having me. Thank you. As I mentioned earlier, we have now heard that authorities have said that Ahu Dariye has been released back to her family without charge.

But this case and this video have again drawn international condemnation and they've shone a spotlight on how Iran treats women. I want to thank you for listening to this episode of What in the World from the BBC World Service. And if you want to find out more about Iran, we have an episode about Masa Amini, who we mentioned earlier, and the protests after her death.

We've also done a sort of basic guide to Iran's extremely complex relationship with Israel and what's happening in the Middle East. It's called Iran, What You Need to Know. And you can find those episodes wherever you get your BBC podcasts. I'm Hannah Gelbart, and I'll be back with another episode soon. Bye.