Amid protests against the wearing of hijab in Iran, it has been announced that a bank manager has been fired for providing banking services to a woman who came without her face covered.
In Iran, a country of about 80 million people, the country’s morality police enforce a law requiring women to cover their heads, necks and hair.
But the Iranian police arrested a woman named Mahza Amini after she protested against Iran’s mandatory head covering law. The death of Amini, who was then under police control, further intensified the anti-hijab movement in Iran.
As a result, many women and men protested in Iran by throwing off their hijab in public. Human rights groups have said that 16,800 people have been arrested and 400 protesters, including youths, have been killed in a crackdown by Iranian authorities.
Meanwhile, Deputy Governor Ahmad Hajizadeh announced that the manager of a bank in Qom province in Tehran, Iran’s capital city, was fired last Thursday for providing banking services to a woman who did not wear a hijab.
Most banks in Islamic countries are state controlled. Hajizadeh also said that it is the responsibility of such bank managers to enforce the Hijab law, Meher reported.
Previously, the hijab was made compulsory in Iran after the 1979 revolution, four years after the establishment of the Islamic Republic that replaced the US-backed monarchy. Later, changing dress codes made it common to see women wearing tight jeans and loose, colorful hijabs.
In this context, Iran’s ultra-conservative president Ibrahim Raisi called last July for “all government institutions to implement the hijab law”. However, many women continue to flout these rules through international media.