IRANIAN WOMEN SENTENCED TO JAIL FOR REFUSING TO WEAR HIJAB

The image of Vida Movahedi holding her headscarf aloft on a stick at a protest became famous in Iran. The repeat offender will now be punished for “encouraging corruption and debauchery.”

She took her traditional hijab off her head and held it aloft on a stick in protest. Now, Vida Movahedi has been sentecnes to one year in an Iranian jail for her act during the dramatic protests during the winter of 2017 – 2018.

The young woman’s lawyer, Payam Derafshan, confirmed to AFP news an earlier statement he made to Iran’s IRNA state news agency that his client was convicted of “encouraging corruption and debauchery” for breaking the law requiring women to wear the traditional headscarf.

This was not the first time Movahedi had engaged in protests and her act was imitated by several other young Iranian women who also face criminal charges for going bareheaded in public.

“The judge was very sympathetic to the fact that Ms. Movahedi has a two-year-old daughter and that she had not had a political motive for her actions,” Derafshan told AFP.

MORE: https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iranian-women-sentence-to-jail-for-refusing-to-wear-hijab-586886