Will the headscarf requirement be relaxed or tightened in Iran? Tehran's signals on this are currently contradictory.
As Iran's Mehr News Agency reported, the prosecutor general's office is urging police and courts to "strictly punish any hijab violation." Courts in the country would have to try female offenders for such violations, fine them as well as impose "additional punishments" such as exile, bans from practicing certain professions and closure of their workplaces, Mehr quoted from the order.
Other possible punishments include a ban on leaving the country, an obligation to provide free public services, a ban on membership in convicted political or social parties, groups and organizations, or an obligation to learn a certain profession. Even harsher punishments are to be imposed on those who encourage others not to wear the hijab. Prison sentences of up to ten years are even to apply here.
Implementation of the order could lead to a renewed presence on the streets of the morality police - the religious police called Gasht-e Erschad, which was supposed to be disbanded in December.
Unlike the attorney general, Iran's "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei a few days ago rather propagated a relaxation of the headscarf requirement. In a speech to hundreds of women, Khamenei said wearing the hijab is obligatory according to religious rules. "However, those who do not fully observe the hijab should not be accused of being irreligious or against the Revolution." And, "But this does not mean that we should exclude these individuals from religion and the Revolution and consider them to be outsiders. Why [should we do such a thing?] We all have certain flaws that we need to correct. The more [flaws] we correct, the better. This was another issue that had to do with the subject of hijab."
For the protest movement, the question of loosening or not loosening should be secondary anyway, because for a long time now it has not been about repealing certain laws, but about overthrowing the murderous regime.