Hijab laws in Iran were enacted between 1979 and 1980. Prior to that, however, there was a long history of anti-hijab sentiment in the nation. In 1936, Reza Shah Pahlavi (also called the Shah) issued a decree known as “kashf-e hijab,” or “unveiling,” which banned all forms of hijab in society and was forcefully implemented. Police were ordered to physically remove veils off women, and beat them if necessary ^[61]. In his attempts to modernize and Westernize the country, Reza Pahlavi deemed the hijab as a sign of backwardness and tried to compel men and women to dress in Western attire ^[62].

While many assume that Reza Pahlavi and later, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s motivations to Westernize Iran made women more free and less oppressed, such a claim could not be further from the truth. By shutting out the Islamic faith and persecuting women who observed the hijab, the Pahlavi dynasty echoed and enforced the Western culture of female objectification by equating women’s freedom with their rejection of religion as a “backward” mentality. This sentiment is often echoed by some Iranians and Western news outlets which romanticize the ban of hijab during the Pahlavi dynasty by showing images of “free” Iranian women dressed in Western attire ^[63].

With the onset of the 1960s and leading into the 1970s, uprisings against Mohammad Reza Shah became more frequent. During the 1970s revolution, the hijab became a symbol of opposition to the monarchy, to a point where many middle-class women started wearing the hijab voluntarily as a form of protest against anti-hijab crackdowns ^[61]. 

Furthermore, this process acknowledges the fact that every society places certain limitations on how individuals should present themselves in public spheres. Individual freedoms are curtailed in every nation for what is deemed appropriate based on the socio-cultural dynamics of that society. For example, it is illegal to walk in the streets of the West naked, as that is deemed uncomfortable for the majority. When the overwhelming majority of Iranians demanded an Islamic Republic — with the hijab being emphasized as having a role within the wider society – the implementation of a form of loose covering, which cannot even be deemed as complete ‘hijab’, is there to respect the boundaries of a society that is maintained and strengthened by the majority masses. When discussing democratic decision-making within countries, then, it is critical to make note of the historical and social processes which gave rise to the established laws and social norms in that society.

The Guidance Patrol, commonly referred to as the “morality police,” was a unit created and signed into law by former President Mohammad Khatami in the last days of his presidency. The law went into effect in 2005 under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. This unit was tasked with enforcing modesty laws for both men and woman, and came to be heavily criticized for the mistreatment of and violence against women deemed to be immodest.

Over the past decade, the morality police have been active to varying degrees, with reformist presidential administrations being associated with less strict involvement of the police than conservative ones. There has been a rhetorical shift in the nation’s leadership that calls for education and correction, as opposed to forceful enforcement [20], which has come from conservative scholars within the religious circles, and therefore the scope for evaluation and reform certainly exists in this regard. Under such reformist administrations, the use of guidance centers, where women are advised on the hijab laws and how to properly abide by them, was preferred. Mahsa Amini was taken to one such center after being arrested for improper covering. 

The reality for most Iranians stopped by the morality police is that they are advised to abide more closely to the rules, and if they disagree, the matter may then escalate to taking a course at a guidance center. Having said that, there is no evidence to substantiate claims that women are taken to prison for not adhering to proper hijab. It is also worth mentioning that the ‘White Wednesday’ campaigns orchestrated by Masih Alinejad were consciously designed to elicit specific reactions in the public sphere and on social media, where young girls were instructed by Alinejad to rebel by waving cloths representing the hijab on a pole and stand in the middle of streets where they can be seen and video recorded. It is usually these confrontations with the morality police that get documented on social media and spread widely.