Hijab And Women's Rights

Reporter Seo Yea-weon

seoyeaweon@naver.com

Living in a multicultural era, the question of whether to respect a culture that is morally wrong is constantly emerging, along with opinions that it is necessary to recognize not only our culture, but also respect other countries cultures and accept their good points. In the meantime, the recent incident involving womens human rights surrounding hijab has become a hot topic in Iran, drawing attention from many people around the world.

The worldwide issue began on 13 September when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who went to Tehran with her family, was arrested by the Guidance Patrol, called 'Gashte Ershad' in Iran for not wearing her hijab properly. After that, while being investigated at the police station, she suddenly collapsed and was taken to the hospital, but three days later, she was reported to have died on 16 September, raising questions that Amini was assaulted by the police and that caused her death. Amini's suspicious death caused massive protests in Tehran and other major cities. The first demonstration took place in Iran on 17 September, and protests have continued throughout Iran since then, with women taking off their hijabs and marching through the streets and burning hijabs in acts of public defiance.

The protests in Iran have been expressed in various ways as a kind of protest against the government, and in some cases, Iran's national broadcast was hacked and cut off from broadcasting. Moreover, so far, the main leaders of the protests have been small business owners or students, but they are said to have been joined by workers producing oil and natural gas in anti-government protests that have continued for more than a month. Experts said the incident could reach a level that threatens the regime, with even workers in Iran's energy sector joining anti-government protests. The anti-hijab protests have spread across Europe, including the United States, with Iran and the world paying attention to them. Solidarity protests were held in several countries, including the United States, Turkey, Germany, Greece, Italy, and Spain. As such, it can be seen that not only in Iran, but also in various countries people, especially women, are working to strengthen the inequality and human rights of Iranian women.

As many people look back on what was tolerated and taken for granted regarding the violation of Muslim women's human rights due to respect for the culture, continued interest and various movements are expected to help improve the issue of women's rights violations.