Iranian cultural figures unveil in public to protest hijab

Despite the violent government crackdown on the Woman, Life, Freedom protests in 2023, Iranian women persist in defiance through unveiling, singing, and dancing in public, showing the movement's resilience.

In the past three weeks, at least three well-known female artists have made headlines by unveiling in public as an act of civil disobedience.

On December 30, renowned 62-year-old visual artist Bita Fayazi gained widespread attention on social media when she cut the ribbon to inaugurate a government-sponsored art exhibition with her scarf tied around her neck instead of covering her curly gray hair. Some other female participants at the ceremony, mostly young women, also did not cover their hair.

The Ceramic Art Biennial event was held at Niavaran Cultural Center, a bustling center of cultural activities and exhibitions governed by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance in the north of the capital.

There are no reports of ministry officials or others at the event objecting to Fayazi’s unveiling during the ceremony. She has not clarified whether it was a planned protest against compulsory hijab or an impromptu act.

The Revolutionary Guards (IRGC)-linked Fars News Agency slammed the ministry for the incident at the Niavaran Cultural Center which it described as a “de-stigmatization of unveiling”. Similarly, the Mehr News Agency, affiliated with the state-run Islamic Propaganda Organization, labeled Fayazi’s act “limitless norm-breaking”. 

A few days earlier, on December 26, Goli Emami, a prominent author and translator, walked on the stage at an event organized by an Iranian publishing house at Ivan-e Shams Hall in Tehran to receive the IranKetab Literary Award for her lifetime of literary work.

Emami, 82, who received a standing ovation from the audience, was not even wearing a token scarf around her neck when she accepted her award. 

Such defiance of the compulsory hijab, even at government-sponsored events, was unimaginable before the death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran's morality police in September 2022.

Amini’s death sparked several months of nationwide protests. The 22-year-old Amini was arrested on the street by morality patrols, not for defiance of hijab, but because some of her hair was showing from under her headscarf.

Since then, the number of women who refuse to wear the compulsory hijab in public has grown significantly. Social media reports indicate that seeing unveiled women, even in very conservative religious cities such as Qom and Mashhad, no longer surprises anyone.

Music and dance have become powerful tools for Iranian women to challenge the Islamic governance that has prohibited solo singing and public dancing by women for over four decades.

The hijab-free concert by singer Parastoo Ahmadi on December 12 at an empty caravansary which she streamed live on YouTube, was as groundbreaking as the one-woman anti-hijab protest of Vida Movahed, a young mother of 32, on Revolution Avenue in Tehran seven years ago, that was the first symbolic act of defiance catching the public's imagination.

At her “virtual concert”, Ahmadi, 27, not only had no head covering but also wore a black gown that revealed her bare shoulders. She was arrested and arraigned but was later freed on bail.

Female actresses have been spearheading the anti-compulsory hijab movement since the Woman, Life, Freedom protests at the cost of imprisonment, being banned from working and losing their passports.