TEHRAN: Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has expressed doubts about new legislation imposing tougher penalties on women who flout mandatory hijab regulations. Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, women in Iran have been required to cover their hair in public. However, increasing numbers are appearing without hijabs, especially since protests erupted following Mahsa Amini’s death in custody in September 2022. She had been arrested for allegedly violating the dress code.

Parliament has approved the new “hijab and chastity” law, but it requires the president’s signature on December 13 to take effect. “As the person responsible for promulgating this law, I have many reservations about it,” Pezeshkian told state television late Monday. The text has not been officially published, but Iranian media reports say the legislation imposes fines equivalent to up to 20 months’ average salary for women who improperly wear a hijab or forgo it altogether in public or on social media.

Violators must pay within 10 days or face travel bans and restrictions on public services, such as obtaining driving licences. “We risk ruining a lot of things in society because of this law,” said the Iranian president, adding that leaders must avoid actions that could alienate the public. The morality police, who arrested Amini before the protests, have largely vanished from the streets since then, though the unit has not been officially abolished. Pezeshkian, who became president in July after campaigning to remove the morality police, has yet to announce whether he will sign the law.

Mousavi hospitalized

In another development, Iranian former prime minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, a leading opposition figure under house arrest for more than 13 years, has been hospitalized, a reformist media outlet said Tuesday. An unsuccessful candidate in the 2009 presidential election, Mousavi led protests against alleged fraud in the re-election of then president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Now aged 82, Mousavi and his wife Zahra Rahnavard have been under house arrest in Tehran since February 2011, but have not been charged.

Mousavi “suffered a severe drug allergy following routine treatments, which led to his transfer to hospital”, the Shargh newspaper reported on its website. “Trusted doctors are surrounding Mir Hossein Mousavi,” it added. Politician Azar Mansouri, who is close to Mousavi’s family, said she was “worried” about his health, the Ham Mihan newspaper reported. A close confidant of the Islamic republic’s founder, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Mousavi served as prime minister from 1981 to 1989. He was appointed by then president Ali Khamenei, who is now Iran’s supreme leader.

Their relations have since become strained by political differences. In 2023, in the run-up to the 44th anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Mousavi called for “fundamental change” to the political system. He had proposed a “free and fair referendum on whether or not to draft a new constitution”, arguing the system’s structure was unsustainable. Despite not being a cleric, Mousavi was one of the main players in the Islamic Revolution and its aftermath. In April, one of his close advisers, the activist Alireza Beheshti Shirazi, was jailed for a year. — AFP