A video has emerged showing an Iranian woman removing her clothes and climbing naked onto a police vehicle, protesting the Islamic Republic’s stricter penalties for women who don’t fully cover themselves.
The footage circulating on social media captures the woman shouting at armed officers whilst standing on their vehicle’s bonnet in Mashhad, Iran’s second-largest city.
The video, shared by Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad, shows her moving to the windscreen, where she sits with legs apart. The video further shows an armed male officer appears reluctant to apprehend the woman. The footage ends after she shouts and raises her arms in protest.
According to the Sun, the woman’s husband said after the incident that she is under medical care. But the woman’s actions are widely being perceived as a form of demonstration against Iran’s increasingly restrictive clothing regulations for women.
In December, Iranian lawmakers approved a contentious new ‘chastity and hijab’ legislation proposing severe penalties for women and girls showing hair, arms or legs.
Following global condemnation from activists and organisations like Amnesty International, which criticised Iran for “seeking to entrench the already suffocating system of repression,” the bill was suspended. The proposed legislation would impose substantial fines and up to 15 years’ imprisonment for repeated violations.
The law requires businesses to report rule breakers to officials.
In January this year, a woman at Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport removed a cleric’s turban to cover her own head after being confronted about not wearing a hijab. The incident was captured on video and widely circulated online.
In November 2024, footage emerged of a university student in underwear at Tehran’s Azad University, who was subsequently forced into a vehicle. She was protesting against security forces who had torn her clothes during a confrontation over not wearing a headscarf, mandatory for women in public, as reported by Iran International.
Women’s dress codes have been controversial since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
Tensions escalated violently in 2022 following Mahsa Amini’s death in custody after being detained for hijab violations, triggering nationwide protests where security forces killed over 550 people and detained thousands.