A female student has been arrested at Tehran Islamic Azad University after staging a protest against dress code regulations by partially removing her clothing, according to reports from Euronews and Amnesty Iran.

The incident, which was captured on video by other students and widely shared on social media platform X, occurred after security officers allegedly harassed the woman for improper hijab wear. The student, whose identity has not been released, was filmed from a classroom overlooking the campus. The video has garnered significant attention online, with social media users praising the woman's actions as courageous.

Video: Arab social media

Syed Amir Mahjoub, the university's public relations director, said security personnel handed the student over to police authorities. He denied any physical confrontation took place and stated that preliminary investigations suggest the woman was experiencing psychological distress.

In Iran, a student harassed by her university's morality police over her "improper" hijab didn't back down. She turned her body into a protest, stripping to her underwear and marching through campus—defying a regime that constantly controls women's bodies. Her act is a powerful… pic.twitter.com/76ekxSK7bI

— Masih Alinejad (@AlinejadMasih) November 2, 2024

Amnesty Iran has called for the student's immediate and unconditional release. In a post on X, the organization demanded she be protected from "torture and other ill-treatment" and granted access to legal representation and family members. The group also urged an investigation into allegations of physical abuse and sexual violence during her arrest.

Iran's authorities must immediately & unconditionally release the university student who was violently arrested on 2 Nov after she removed her clothes in protest against abusive enforcement of compulsory veiling by security officials at Tehran's Islamic Azad University. 1/2 pic.twitter.com/lI1JXYsgtm

— Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) November 2, 2024

Emily Schrader, an online activist for the Iranian people, posted on Instagram: "Initial reports indicate that following the protest incident, she was abducted by 4 security forces from the campus and was severely beaten before being dragged into a car and taken to an unknown place. According to an eyewitness, the girl was beat so badly her head hit the door of the car and she was bleeding profusely to the point that traces of blood were seen on the tires of the car."

Some news outlets have reported that intelligence agents arrested the woman and transferred her to an undisclosed location. A local university-affiliated newspaper stated she had been taken to a psychiatric facility.

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Iran's newly appointed president, Masoud Pezeshkian, has indicated that the country's morality police will no longer "bother" women over the mandatory hijab headscarf, according to a report by the BBC. The statement comes just days after the United Nations cautioned that women in Iran were still facing violent punishment for violating the strict dress code.

Pezeshkian's comments, made during his first press conference since taking office in July, coincided with the second anniversary of Mahsa Amini's death in police custody. Amini, 22, was arrested for allegedly not wearing the hijab properly, an incident that sparked nationwide protests in 2022.

Responding to a female reporter who mentioned taking detours to avoid police vans on her way to the press conference, Pezeshkian stated, "The morality police were not supposed to confront [women]. I will follow up so they don't bother [them]." The exchange, broadcast live on major state TV networks including rolling news channel IRINN, has since gone viral online.

The president's remarks suggest a potential shift in the enforcement of Iran's mandatory hijab law. During his election campaign, Pezeshkian pledged to oppose police patrols enforcing the headscarf requirement and vowed to ease some of the country's long-standing internet controls.

However, the UN's latest fact-finding mission paints a different picture. In a report released last week, the UN stated that Iran's government had "intensified efforts" to suppress women's rights and crush activism since the 2022 protests. The report noted that authorities have "enhanced surveillance of hijab compliance" in both public and private environments while escalating violence in punishing women and girls who break the rules.

The UN mission also highlighted that a "Hijab and Chastity" bill is in the final stages of approval before Iran's Guardian Council. If passed, the legislation would introduce harsher penalties for women who do not wear the mandatory hijab, including substantial fines, longer prison sentences, restrictions on work and educational opportunities, and travel bans.

Despite these concerns, there were signs of a potentially more relaxed attitude at Pezeshkian's press conference, where some female journalists wore loose head coverings. This marked a departure from previous official events where full hijab was typically required for female journalists, the BBC reported.

Pezeshkian, who became president after his predecessor died in a helicopter crash, is viewed as a potentially reformist leader. His comments on the morality police and hijab enforcement have sparked discussions about possible changes in Iran's approach to women's rights and personal freedoms.

As Iran grapples with these internal issues, the international community continues to monitor the situation closely. The contrast between Pezeshkian's statements and the UN's findings highlights the complex and evolving nature of Iran's social and political landscape.

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A 31-year-old Iranian woman has been left paraplegic after being shot by police over a violation of the country's strict hijab rules, according to a source with knowledge of the case who spoke to the BBC. Arezoo Badri, a mother of two, was driving home with her sister in the northern city of Noor on July 22 when police attempted to pull her over to confiscate her car.

The incident occurred amid a renewed crackdown by Iranian authorities on women defying the nation's compulsory dress code. Police had recently announced measures, including CCTV, to identify female drivers failing to cover their heads and confiscating vehicles carrying female passengers with uncovered hair.

According to the BBC source, the police officer first shot at the car's tire before targeting Badri directly from the driver's side. "The bullet entered her lung and severely damaged her spinal cord," the source said. "She is paralyzed from the waist down, and doctors have said it will take months to determine whether she will be permanently paraplegic or not."

JUST NOW: BBC reporting that Arezoo Badri, a mother of two, has been left paraplegic after Iranian police in Noor shot her for violating compulsory hijab. pic.twitter.com/wdC2JXPLb4

— Kareem Rifai (@KareemRifai) August 12, 2024

Colonel Ahmed Amini, Noor's police chief, told Iran's state-run news agency that the use of firearms was permitted under Iranian law. He stated that the driver did not comply with the order to stop, prompting the officers to shoot. The police chief did not name Badri in his statement.

It remains unclear whether Badri was wearing a headscarf at the time of the incident. However, her car reportedly had a confiscation notice against it, suggesting multiple alleged violations of the hijab law. Both the police and the BBC source confirmed that the car's windows were tinted.

Following the shooting, Badri was initially taken to a hospital in Noor before being transferred to a hospital in Sari, the provincial capital, for lung surgery. A week later, she was moved to Tehran, where the bullet was only removed after 10 days, according to the source.

Badri is currently in the intensive care unit of the police-owned Vali-e-Asr Hospital in Tehran under tight security. The source said that her family is allowed only brief visits, during which their mobile phones are confiscated. Authorities have prohibited visitors from taking photos or videos of Badri, although some images have emerged.

The heightened security measures surrounding Badri's hospitalization are reminiscent of those implemented in the case of Armita Geravand, a 17-year-old who died in October after spending 28 days in a coma following an alleged altercation with the morality police at an underground station. Human rights activists claimed she was assaulted for not wearing a hijab, an allegation denied by the Iranian government.

The incident involving Badri comes amid ongoing tensions in Iran over the enforcement of hijab laws. Women have been legally required to wear a hijab in public since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, with penalties for infringement including fines and imprisonment. The death of Mahsa Amini in 2022 while in custody of the morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab "improperly" sparked widespread protests and a movement known as "Women, Life, Freedom."

Despite the increased risk of punishment, Iranian women have told the BBC they remain willing to defy the hijab rule. Recently, CCTV footage showing the violent assault of a 14-year-old girl by hijab enforcement officers in Tehran ignited widespread outrage. The girl's mother told Iran's Ensaf News that she found her daughter at a morality police station with a "bruised face, swollen lips, a bruised neck, and torn clothes."

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France is facing criticism from human rights organizations over its decision to ban its female athletes from wearing hijabs during the upcoming Paris Summer Olympics. The controversial policy, announced last September by French Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, has reignited debates about religious freedom and secularism in sports.

According to reporting by the Daily Mail, Amnesty International, along with ten other rights groups, has accused France of "discriminatory hypocrisy" for refusing to allow its athletes to wear the hijab during Olympic competitions. The organizations argue that the ban prevents athletes "from exercising their human right to play sport without discrimination of any kind."

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has declined to intervene in the matter, stating that "freedom of religion is interpreted in many different ways by different states." The IOC previously announced that athletes would be permitted to wear hijabs in the Olympic Village, but France's ban extends to competition venues.

Amelie Oudea-Castera, France's sports minister, defended the ban last year, citing the principle of secularism, calling it "a ban on any type of proselytizing. That means absolute neutrality in public services. The French team will not wear the headscarf."

Critics argue that the policy contradicts not only the IOC's own guidelines but also international treaty obligations that France is required to uphold. Anna Błuś, Amnesty International's Women's Rights Researcher in Europe, stated, "Banning French athletes from competing with sports hijabs at the Olympic and Paralympic Games makes a mockery of claims that Paris 2024 is the first Gender Equal Olympics and lays bare the racist gender discrimination that underpins access to sport in France."

The IOC should insist that France overturn its ban on French athletes wearing the hijab at #ParisOlympics or face sanctions. It's discriminatory and in part based on gross misrepresentation of the Olympic Charter.
on how France dresses its Islamophobia up as secularism pic.twitter.com/O8aA9h7dFG

— Nicholas McGeehan (@NcGeehan) April 17, 2024

 France is currently the only European country that prohibits headscarf-wearing women from participating in most domestic sports competitions. The French Council of State upheld a similar ban on female footballers wearing hijabs during games in June 2023.

Rights groups have expressed concern about the potential consequences of blocking headscarf-wearing women from participating in sports. Amnesty International claims that such bans have resulted in negative mental and physical consequences for women and caused "humiliation, trauma, and fear." The United Nations Rights Office has also indirectly weighed in on the issue. A spokeswoman in Geneva stated that "no one should impose on a woman what she needs to wear or not to wear."

As the Paris Olympics approach, scheduled to begin in just ten days, France has shown no signs of reversing its stance on the hijab ban. The Daily Mail reports that many Muslim athletes participate in sporting events while wearing specially designed hijabs. However, under the current French policy, these athletes may be forced to choose between their religious beliefs and representing their country at the Olympics.

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British Airways unveiled a new uniform collection, which offers female crew members a range of diverse new clothing options including the hijab and coveralls.

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The iconic carrier entrusted British tailor and designer Ozwald Boateng with the first update to its uniforms in some 20 years as part of the airline's centenary celebrations; the new designs will be worn by more than 30,000 of the airline's cabin crew, pilots, and check-in agents, starting spring this year; they will replace the current set of uniforms designed by Julien MacDonald in the early 2000s.

Covid testing returns to Ben Gurion airport as fears of the 'Kraken' variant spreading to Israel grow

The PCR tests are free and not mandatory, but according to the staff, few travelers are taking up the offer — @SarahChlala pic.twitter.com/pKxR8asWPe

— i24NEWS English (@i24NEWS_EN) January 12, 2023

Boateng said in a statement that "designing this uniform was a vast and painstaking undertaking and it went far beyond clothes. It was about creating an energetic shift internally. One of my main objectives was to create something that spoke to, and for, the airline's colleagues. Something that inspired and empowered them, encouraged them to conduct their roles with pride and most importantly to ensure that they felt seen and heard."

"Although the airline has a strong heritage, it was imperative to support in creating a fresh narrative of change and transcendence, while remaining timeliness," Boateng added.

British Airways CEO Sean Doyle said that "our uniform is an iconic representation of our brand, something that will carry us into our future, representing the very best of modern Britain and helping us deliver a great British original service for our customers."

This article was first published by i24NEWS.

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France's highest court on Wednesday upheld a ban on barristers wearing the hijab and other religious symbols in courtrooms in the north, a first of its kind ruling that sets a precedent for the rest of the country.

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The conspicuous display of religious symbols is an emotive subject in France and the court's decision may stir a nationwide debate over so-called core Republican values of secularism and identity ahead of April's presidential election.

The case was brought by Sarah Asmeta, a 30-year-old hijab-wearing French-Syrian lawyer, who challenged a rule set by the Bar Council of Lille that bans religious markers in its courtrooms on the grounds that it was discriminatory.

In its ruling, the Court of Cassation said the ban was "necessary and appropriate, on the one hand, to preserve the independence of the lawyer and, on the other, to guarantee the right to a fair trial." Banning the wearing of religious symbols "does not constitute discrimination," it added.

Asmeta told Reuters she was shocked and disappointed with the ruling. "Why does covering my hair stop my client from the right to a free trial?" she told Reuters. "My clients are not children. If they choose me as their lawyer, with my veil, then it is their choice."

In the months after she took an oath and entered law as a trainee barrister, the Lille Bar Council passed its own internal rule banning any signs of political, philosophical and religious conviction to be worn with the gown in court.

Asmeta challenged the Lille Bar Council's rule, calling it targeted and discriminatory. She lost the case in an appeals court in 2020 and pushed the matter up to the Court of Cassation.

Religious symbols and clothing are banned for public servants in France due to its principle of "laïcité", or secularism – the separation of religion and state. 

French lawmakers and politicians have in recent years sought to extend curbs on wearing the hijab to cover, for example, mothers who accompany their children on school trips and football players.

As a presidential election in April approaches, right-wing candidates have focused on identity issues.

Asmeta said she was contemplating taking her fight to the European Court of Human Rights.

The case has provoked a heated debate within the legal community. More than three dozen lawyers from Paris, where the Bar Council has imposed a similar ban, on Monday penned an open letter calling for a nationwide rule against the head covering in courtrooms. "We, lawyers, do not want a communitarian and obscurantist judiciary," they wrote in the French publication Marianne.

Slim Ben Achour, a lawyer specializing in discrimination, disagreed and said such bans were hypocritical.

"It is not possible that we, lawyers, the defenders of rights, or at least that is how we sell ourselves, block Muslim women [from practicing]," he told Reuters.

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A female Palestinian reporter said Thursday that a member of the Hamas-run border patrol in Gaza beat her with a tree branch for not wearing a hijab last month, an incident that sparked a public outcry.

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Hamas has promised an apology and said it would punish the man. The incident highlighted Hamas' occasionally heavy-handed treatment of both reporters and women in Gaza, where it seized power in 2007 from the Palestinian Authority.

Rewaa Mershid, a 26-year-old reporter for a local radio station, was with colleagues filming at a privately owned farm near the heavily guarded Gaza frontier on April 25 when two members of a Hamas-run border patrol approached and asked them to identify themselves.

"The discussion took another turn, focusing on my way of dressing and why I'm not wearing a hijab," Mershid said, referring to the scarf that many devout Muslim women use to cover their hair in public.

The Hamas members called a female police unit, but then an argument broke out and one of them cut a branch off a lemon tree and struck her three times, she said. She shared a medical report saying she had "bruises in the lower back and the lower part."

The Palestinian journalists' union issued a statement condemning the attack, sparking a debate on social media in which some took her side while others condemned her behavior.

Mershid had filed a complaint with the Interior Ministry, which oversees security services, on the day of the incident, but it said it was not directly responsible for the patrolmen. The lines between Hamas' armed wing and the security services in Gaza are often blurred.

After the incident was widely publicized, the ministry said it carried out an investigation and concluded that the militant "violated instructions for dealing with citizens and beat Mershid with a tree branch." The ministry said it would "present an apology" to Mershid and punish the militant with "imprisonment,' without providing further details.

A spokesman for the ministry could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The ministry's report said Mershid was on a personal photo shoot and did not have permission to film in the area. In Gaza, journalists must get permission to film in a growing number of locations -- not just the border area, but also beaches, hospitals and even some markets.

An Associated Press cameraman was recently barred from interviewing people breaking their daily fast on a beach during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

The International Federation of Journalists reported 76 cases of media rights violations by Gaza security forces and 42 by PA security forces in the West Bank in 2020. The violations included arrests and barring coverage at some events, such as demonstrations.

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Since seizing power in Gaza, Hamas has occasionally taken steps to impose Islamic values on an already conservative society, often backing off after facing public criticism.

It requires most female high school students, as well as female lawyers trying cases in court, to wear the hijab. It barred women from participating in a marathon organized by a UN agency in 2013, prompting the organizers to cancel it.

Earlier this year, a Hamas-run religious court ruled that unaccompanied women could only travel with the permission of a male relative, but the ruling was suspended days later after an outcry from human rights groups.

Mershid said she was moved by the supportive messages she received on social media, saying it "encourages other women and men, not necessarily journalists, not to stay silent."

But she said she no longer feels safe in Gaza.

"I'm looking for any opportunity outside Gaza," she said. "I'm a journalist and love journalism, but Gaza isn't the place for me to continue."

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Ifa Hanifah Misbach was 19 when her father died – and  her family told her he would not go to heaven because she refused to wear the hijab, a Muslim head covering.

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 Misbach now works as a psychologist in Bandung, West Java, where she has counselled dozens of Indonesian girls who have been ostracized, bullied and threatened with expulsion from school because they too declined to wear the veil.

"The impact of religious pressures, especially to wear the jilbab, when you're young, makes it feel like you have no breathing room," Misbach said, using the word for hijab more commonly used in Indonesia, in a report by Human Rights Watch. "I wanted to run away."

The 45-year-old's experience is one of many shared by women and girls in the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, including cases of girls being expelled from school.

Indonesia's ideology enshrines religious diversity and the country has significant Christian, Hindu, Buddhist and other minorities, but religious conservatism and growing intolerance of beliefs other than Islam has been rising over the past two decades.

Women and girls across the country can face "intense and constant" pressure to wear the hijab, said Human Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono, which the rights body described as an assault on basic rights to freedom of religion, expression and privacy.

"Wearing a jilbab should be a choice, it should not be a mandatory regulation," Harsono told Reuters. "There is a growing belief all over Indonesia that if you are a Muslim woman and you don't wear the hijab you are less pious; you are morally less."

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Human Rights Watch identified more than 60 discriminatory local, provincial bylaws issued since 2001 to enforce female dress codes. A 2014 national government regulation has been widely interpreted as requiring all female Muslim students in the country of around 270 million people to wear a jilbab at school.

"Indonesian state schools use a combination of psychological pressure, public humiliation, and sanctions to persuade girls to wear the hijab," said the report.

One Muslim highschooler, who asked to remain anonymous, recalled being told at age 12 by two of her classmates that she should wear the hijab as "one strand of hair that is shown is equal to one step closer towards hell."

There has been some pushback. The case of a Christian schoolgirl in West Sumatra who was forced to wear the hijab sparked a national outcry last month, leading the education and religious affairs ministry to issue a decree banning public schools from making religious attire mandatory.

Indonesia's main rights body, Komnas HAM, said the decree supported the right to religious choice, but it remains unclear how strictly it will be enforced.

Human Rights Watch found the problems extended well beyond school, reporting cases of female civil servants and lecturers who resigned from their jobs due to pressure to wear the hijab, and others who were unable to access government services because they chose not to veil.

A spokesman for the Education Ministry did not respond specifically to questions about the report, referring Reuters to its recent decree. The religious affairs ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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The team's parent company, Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment, unveiled the Nike Pro hijabs emblazoned with the team logo in a social media post, Friday. The Raptors say they are the first NBA team to offer an athletic hijab for Muslim women.

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MLSE senior marketing director Jerry Ferguson says the organization was inspired to create the hijabs by a local Muslim women's organization known as the Hijabi Ballers. The women regularly play basketball at a community court associated with the team.

Ferguson told The Canadian Press that the Raptors want to send a message of inclusion to its diverse fan base, which grew substantially during last season's run to the team's first NBA title.

"One of the things that we are very interested in is moving from saying we are just about inclusivity and accessibility, and finding ways to bring products and ideas to market that actually prove that," he said by phone.

The International Basketball Federation and FIFA lifted bans on head coverings in recent years.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims praised the Hijabi Ballers for spurring the Raptors to act. Mustafa Farooq, the council's executive director, acknowledged that the issue of hijabs in sports has proved divisive. Opponents have called them a symbol of oppression.

"It's hard for me to understand that," Farooq said. "One of the beautiful things about sports is that everyone can play. Highlighting that … everyone should get a shot is such a beautiful thing to do, so obviously we thank the Raptors for taking this step."

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Masih Alinejad, a US-based Iranian journalist, started a social media campaign in 2014 encouraging women in Iran to share self-portraits without the Islamic veil, which she then shares on her Facebook page, "My Stealthy Freedom."

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She said campaigners had continued to send her pictures and videos after Tehran's Revolutionary Court said on Monday that they could face up to 10 years in prison.

"Today I have received lots of videos from inside Iran. And women in these videos are braver and angrier than before," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in emailed comments.

She said Iran's government was "scared of women practicing civil disobedience and engaging in peaceful protest."

Many Muslim women cover their heads in public with the hijab as a sign of modesty, although some critics see it as a sign of female oppression.

Under Iran's Islamic law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair in public. Violators are publicly admonished, fined or arrested.

Those in breach of the law can face a prison sentence of up to two months, according to rights group Amnesty International, which says women and girls are regularly stopped in the street by morality police and vigilantes.

The head of the Tehran's Revolutionary Court said those sharing protest videos with Alinejad – who Tehran deems to be acting on behalf of the United States – could be imprisoned for up to a decade under laws relating to cooperating with an enemy state.

"All those women who send the video footage of removing their hijab to her will be sentenced to between one to 10 years of jail," Musa Ghazanfarabadi told the semi-official Fars news agency.

The Iranian Embassy in London did not immediately respond to a request for additional comment.

At least 39 women were arrested last year in connection with anti-hijab protests, according to Amnesty.

Iran's laws are written in a "very broad and vague manner" and that can be used by courts to increase penalties for women's rights protesters, said Raha Bahreini, an Iran researcher with Amnesty.

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