Women without hijab to be prosecuted 'without mercy': Iran's judiciary chief

As more and more women continue to defy Iran's compulsory dress code, the country's judiciary chief threatened to prosecute women who appear in public without hijab "without mercy", news agency Reuters reported quoting Iranian media.

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Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said, “Unveiling is tantamount to enmity with (our) values. Those “who commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and will be “prosecuted without mercy,” he added, without detailing the punishments. The warning comes following Iran's interior ministry reinforcing the government’s mandatory hijab law.

The hijab is “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” the interior ministry statement said, asserting that there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the issue.

Law enforcement officers were “obliged to refer obvious crimes and any kind of abnormality that is against the religious law and occurs in public to judicial authorities”, Iran's judiciary chief said.

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Since September last year, many Iranian women have chosen to not wear hijab in public as massive protests gripped the country following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police. Mahsa Amini had been detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule.

Since then, videos of women without a hijab resisting the morality police have flooded social media. In Iran, women are obliged to cover their hair with hijab and loose-fitting clothes. Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest for not following the rules.