Eight women in Iran have been arrested for not wearing hijab (the compulsory headscarf) while posting pictures on the photo-sharing app Instagram. Not only this, one of them has also been forced to publicly apologise for their collective 'sin' - an act that goes against the fundamental law of the land that demands women to have their heads and bodies appropriately covered.
Telegraph
After being interrogated by Abbas Jafari Dowlatabadi, Tehran's prosecutor general, well-known model Elham Aram was accused of "promoting western promiscuity" on Monday. Famous for her blonde hair and wedding portraits, Elham was forced to issue a public apology on state television.
Iranian Model, Elham Arab, answering to Tehran attorney for posting her pictures without scarf on Instagram pic.twitter.com/y1CSM4FrYQ[1]
— potkin azarmehr (@potkazar) May 16, 2016[2]
Elham said, "All women love beauty and fame. They would like to be seen, but it is important to know what price they will pay to be seen…a model will certainly lose her hijab and honour."
Her Instagram account has since been shut down, along with several other Facebook pages and websites that showcased these women without the hijab. More arrests are expected in what seems like a public exercise of moral policing - one where the Iranian authorities would do anything to "defend" the Islamic honour by extracting everything that's "unhealthy".
Poised against this is the story of a Pakistani pornstar, Nadia Ali, who has decided to bring the hijab on-screen. It's in no way to be confused with bringing religion into porn. It's in fact a "liberal movement" to bolster women's rights through adult content.
Broadly
"I take my faith and my culture with me. Your faith has nothing to do with what you do for work," said Nadia in her interview with Broadly[3].
"Wearing the hijab and f*cking on camera is showing it's OK—it's the norm. I was trying to open up a platform for Middle Eastern women to know that it's OK to masturbate, to be open to your sexuality," she added.
Broadly
"I am a practicing Muslim. What you do is not who you are. I pray in the morning, and I'm an exotic dancer at night," said Nadia before adding that for many, these are two faces of reality that simply cannot co-exist.
Nadia also makes an extremely valid point when she adds, "In Middle Eastern countries like Saudi Arabia, women are not allowed to drive. Also, a girl recently got killed in my country because she helped someone run away to get married. There are women getting killed for having education and creating education for women. They're getting killed for that. If they're dying for the simplest shit, I might as well get banned for the most extreme."
Kelly Madison Media
While Nadia's story aims at allowing women to embrace their basic instincts without having any shame about it, Iran seems to be simply de-rooting women freedom before it deepens the "unhealthiness" of it all. Several campaigns are underway to fight this restraint but it looks like the fight has only just started.
References
- ^ pic.twitter.com/y1CSM4FrYQ (t.co)
- ^ May 16, 2016 (twitter.com)
- ^ Broadly (broadly.vice.com)
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