Scholar: Hijab bill approved by parliament flies in face of Iran’s Constitution

Mohammad Taghi Fazel Meybodi, a researcher in the Qom seminary and a member of the researchers’ congregation, in an interview with Asr Iran news website said that the Guardian Council has singled out “hundreds of constitutional and religious violations” in the bill that seeks to approve a stricter hijab bill targeting those who ‘mock’ the legal dress code in the country.

Fazel Meybodi questioned the lawmakers’ competence in approving the bill, “based on the Islamic values and principles”, that even the Guardian Council, which is aligned with the parliament, has harshly criticized it.

The council, which is Iran’s top supervisory body, has found serious faults with the bill, highlighting a long list of ambiguities which are open to interpretation.

“The Guardian Council narrowed the pool out of which the parliamentarians could be elected and as a result, according to figures and the election turnout, the current parliament does not represent the majority of the Iranian people,” Fazel Meybodi asserted.

Although no official figures have been provided in this regard, many Iranian women have been flouting the law on hijab, the head covering worn by women, since the protests and deadly unrest triggered in the country after the death of a woman in police custody in September 2022.
Under the Iranian constitution, wearing Islamic hijab in public is mandatory.