Two prominent actresses in Iran, Katayoun Riahi and Pantea Bahram, have been charged by Iranian authorities for publishing pictures of themselves violating the country’s dress code for women, according to local media reports. The actresses are accused of “removing the hijab in public and posting photos on the internet” and could face fines or imprisonment if prosecuted.
The police in Tehran have referred the case against Riahi and Bahram to Iran’s judiciary, just weeks after the authorities announced a crackdown on women defying the compulsory dress code. The use of “smart” technology in public places to identify and punish women breaking the dress code was also announced by the police earlier this month.
Last week, photos of Bahram went viral after she posed without a headscarf at a film screening, while Riahi posted several photos of herself taken in public places around Tehran without a headscarf. The dress code, requiring women to wear headscarves in public, was imposed shortly after the Islamic revolution of 1979. However, the number of women in Iran defying the dress code has increased following a wave of protests that began after the death of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini in custody in September 2020, for allegedly breaching the code.
The authorities in Iran have also recently closed 150 commercial establishments whose employees were not complying with the dress code. Bahram and Riahi are both award-winning actresses at Iran’s leading cinema event, the Fajr International Film Festival. In November 2020, Riahi was detained for over a week for posting photos in solidarity with the Amini protests, becoming the first Iranian actress to post such images on social media in support of the movement.
The legal battle against the two actresses is another example of the strict cultural and religious norms that Iranian women are expected to follow. The charges against them reflect the tensions between a younger generation of Iranians who are pushing for greater freedom and a conservative establishment that seeks to maintain strict adherence to Islamic values.
