Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Nov 10: As protests against restrictions against women, including wearing of hijab in public places, continued to grow in Iran, the Taliban administration in Afghanistan has imposed a new diktat restricting women from entering public parks.
The women were stopped from entering amusement parks in Kabul on Thursday after the Taliban’s morality ministry said there would be restrictions on women accessing public parks. A spokesperson for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (MPVPV) said women would be restricted from entering parks but did not share any further details.
At a Kabul amusement park which has rides such as bumper cars and a Ferris wheel, witnesses saw several women being turned away by officials, with Taliban agents supervising the situation. Two park operators said they had been instructed by the Taliban officials to not allow women to enter the parks.
Since taking over Afghanistan last year, the Taliban have imposed several restrictions on women, including not allowing them to leave their homes without a male relative and face covers. Several women in the urban areas ignored the rules and some have been permitted to work in government offices. The hardline group also made a U-turn on opening all girls’ high schools in March.
The group must reverse its course on women’s rights for any path towards formal recognition of its government, the West has maintained. However, the Taliban has not budged and maintained that they respect women’s rights in accordance with “their interpretation of Islamic law” and not what the west would want.
In Iran, the defiant acts by women of knocking the turbans off the heads of clerics and running away to humiliate them in the public has kept increasing as protests over the death of 22-year old Mahsa Amini in the police lock-up for defying to wear hijab continued to grow. Iranian women are mounting a united front against the regime amid pushback from Islamic clerics. Videos have emerged of women taking on clerics who order them to wear hijab in public places throwing challenges at them.
Removing the turbans and publically opposing clerics have turned into an act of protest after the regime reportedly killed hundreds of protesters. The fear of being accosted in public has even forced some clerics to avoid wearing their turbans and cloaks in public, media reports from Tehran said.
At least 328 people have been killed and 14,825 others arrested in the unrest, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that’s been monitoring the protests over last 54 days. Iran’s government for weeks has remained silent on casualty figures while state media counterfactually claims security forces have killed no one.
Online videos emerging from Iran, despite government efforts to suppress the internet, appeared to show demonstrations in Tehran, the capital, as well as cities elsewhere in the country. Near Isfahan, video showed clouds of tear gas. Shouts of “Death to the Dictator” could be heard — a common chant in the protests targeting Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
In a viral video, a woman can be heard asking a cleric to “mind his own business” as he tells her to “dress properly.” In another, a cleric is heard telling a women to wear hijab, to which the woman replies, “I don’t want to, you stupid man,” and walks off.
“This is my country. You can’t tell me where I can have hijab and where not,” a young woman was heard saying to a cleric in another viral clip. To this the cleric responds, “If you don’t like the compulsory veil, go live with Masih Alinejad in England.” She lives in the US, not England, the woman reminds the cleric.
Iranian dissident and activist Masih Alinejad has been living in exile in the US since fleeing Iran following the 2009 election. “I won’t live abroad. I want to be like this in my own homeland. I want to live free in my own homeland,” another woman is heard saying to a cleric.
In a clip from a train station, another Iranian woman tells a cleric to pack his bag and leave as she refuses to wear hijab. “Enough of you clerics. Pack your bags and go. No one can say what I can and can’t wear. You have ruined this country,” the woman says as her voice drowns in applause. “If you are aroused by a woman’s hair, then you are the problem. You have ruined the country for 40 years. Pack your suitcases,” says another woman to a cleric as he asked her to cover her hair.