This is the shocking moment a pregnant Iranian woman is shoved to the ground because she was dancing and not wearing a hijab.
Video shows the pregnant woman dancing in front of onlookers at a gathering before a woman wearing a hijab shoves her to the floor – causing the victim to fall on top of a child who was sitting down.
But the pregnant woman fights back and slaps the attacker in the face in front of a crowd of shocked onlookers.
The angry woman wearing the hijab then hits the victim repeatedly, prompting cheers from the onlookers.
The pregnant woman, after being hit three times, shouts: ‘Why are you beating me?’
The attacker responds: ‘Get out of here, wear your hijab. You have to respect the hijab.’
The victim confronts the woman and says: ‘You know what? I am pregnant and unfortunately I cannot defend myself right now.’
The attacker then shouts: ‘Put on your hijab’ in front of the crowd.
It is not known exactly when or where in Iran the footage was captured, but it was shared on Twitter by Masih Alinejad – an Iranian women’s rights campaigner currently based in the US who described the attack as ‘shocking, bitter and painful’.
Alinejad said: ‘Why should this pregnant woman be so brutally attacked by a harassing woman because of the hijab and so many people are just spectators?
‘To remain silent in the face of bullies is not only oppression but also to encourage the oppressor to repeat the bullying.’
She said in a later tweet: ‘This pregnant woman got beaten up by pro hijab woman for wearing ‘inappropriate hijab’ & dancing.
‘In my country Iran the laws allow people to warn women for not following hijab laws. The regime hired 7000 undercover agents only in Tehran to stop unveiled women.’
Iran, like many Middle Eastern nations, enforces laws on what women and girls aged 13 and above can wear in public with an emphasis on ‘modesty’.
Women in Iran are compelled to wear headscarves, must cover their arms and legs, and are banned from wearing clothing deemed too colourful or close-fitting.
The laws derive from comments made by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini following the Islamic Revolution of 1979.
Breaking the rules can result in fines of up to 500,000 rials (£17) and up to two months in prison.
Former President Hassan Rouhani, who came to power in 2013 promising a more moderate stance, previously said it is not the job of police to enforce religious rules such as those forcing women to cover their hair.
But in April 2016, officials said there were 7,000 undercover morality police reporting on things like ‘bad hijab’ – a blanket term usually referring to un-Islamic dress by women.
And following Rouhani’s ouster earlier this year and the election of hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, it seems rules are being more strictly enforced.
Rights campaigners warned at the time Raisi came to power that his election was designed to send a message from Iran’s rulers to the population that dissent would no longer be tolerated.
Last week, Iranian authorities arrested the organisers of a skateboarding event in the southern city of Shiraz after video emerged of teenage girls at the event not wearing the hijab.
‘This video demonstrates that, like youth everywhere, Iranian youth want to hang out with their friends and have fun on the weekend,’ said Holly Dagres, nonresident senior fellow at the Washington-based think tank, the Atlantic Council, who has an area focus on Iran.
‘The Islamic Republic is in a real conundrum whereby the geriatric clerics at the top are disconnected from some of the realities on the ground and struggling to reach this young generation of Iranians who see beyond their religious ruse.’
There have been a number of cases of women being beaten for not wearing a hijab in Iran.
In 2019, an Iranian woman was dragged across the street and beaten as the crowd cheered because she was dancing and not wearing a hijab.
The woman was seen standing in the central reservation of a busy road as she is jeered by men in the city of Rasht, on Iran’s Caspian Sea coast.
A crowd appeared to be in a stand-off with the woman before a few men approached her, with one grabbing her around the head and forcing her to the ground.
He then took hold of her ankles and brutally dragged her over the tarmac, prompting a massive cheer from the crowd of men.
In 2020, an Iranian undercover morality agent spat at teenage girls and asked them ‘where’s your dirty owner?’ after seeing them without a hijab.
In a shocking video, which has been circulating on social media, a man stops his car and gets out before hurling abuse at the youngsters.
During the heated exchange on the side of the road in Kermanshah, Iran, he says to the girls ‘I’ll f*** your mother’ and claims their behaviour is ‘immoral’ while a police officer appears to do nothing about the incident.
The video shows, as tensions between the man and the teenagers grow, the man’s wife gets out of the car and says ‘apologise to my husband so he won’t hit you’.
The woman informs them that her husband is from the intelligence services and could get them arrested.
After the man spits in the girls’ faces, another woman wearing a hijab pushes him.
A police car arrives shortly afterwards but the officer watches from afar and the teenagers scream: ‘Officer, why aren’t you doing anything?’
Source » dailymail