March Seeks Stricter Dress Code For Women

Hundreds of demonstrators marched through the Iranian capital demanding stricter enforcement of the Islamic dress code for women, the Akhbar newspaper reported Monday.

The Farsi-language daily said demonstrators calling themselves “God’s Helpers” demanded punishment for violators of the hejab, the Islamic dress code that requires women to be covered in head-to-toe chador robes in public.

Violators of the dress code can be publicly flogged, jailed, or fined.

For the last two years, the government of President Hashemi Rafsanjani has tacitly relaxed the dress code, allowing women to appear in public wearing makeup or with some hair showing from under their mandatory head scarves.