By Rebel News | Created at 2024-11-14 19:01:31 | Updated at 2024-11-22 03:13:29
1 week ago
Iran’s government has announced that the country will open a ‘treatment clinic’ for women who defy the country’s strict hijab laws that force women to have their heads covered while out in public.
The announcement was made by the leader of Iran’s Women and Family Department of the Tehran Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, according to The Guardian.
The leader of the department, Mehri Talebi Darestani, reportedly said that the clinic would provide “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal”.
The announcement comes following a young Iranian woman's act of defiance in which she made headlines after stripping down to her underwear in Tehran. The woman was later taken to a psychiatric facility for treatment according to Iranian authorities.
A UK-based Iranian journalist named Sima Sabet called the new measure "shameful." Sabet was reportedly the target of a murder plot by the Iranian government just last year.
Speaking further about the new 'clinic,' Sabet said, “The idea of establishing clinics to ‘cure’ unveiled women is chilling, where people are separated from society simply for not conforming to the ruling ideology.”
Another young woman from Iran who spoke to The Guardian on the condition of anonymity explained that “It won’t be a clinic, it will be a prison. We are struggling to make ends meet and have power outages, but a piece of cloth is what this state is worried about. If there was a time for all of us to come back to the streets, it’s now or they’ll lock us all up.”
The human rights group Amnesty International has reported evidence of violence, forced medication, and torture for political dissidents in Iran and those deemed 'mentally unstable' by the state.
The new proposed clinic raises grave concerns about the direction of women's rights in Iran, as the country is already known as one of the most repressive nations on earth for women.
