Two people who organized a marathon in Iran are now sitting in jail. Their crime? Letting women run without wearing hijabs.
The marathon happened on Kish Island, and around 2000 women and 3000 men signed up for it. They ran in separate groups.
The women’s group wore matching red t-shirts, and in the photos shared online, it can clearly be seen that some of them had not covered their heads, which didn’t go well with some of the authorities.
Iran officials saw it as crossing a line which can’t be tolerated and didn’t waste any time going after the organizers.
Women running without hijab was not the only thing that bothered them, they were angry about the fact that an event like a marathon happened at all.
Think about it this way. Just a few years back, seeing thousands of Iranian women in workout clothes at a big public event would have been scandalous. Even though men and women ran separately, having women out there like that was pushing boundaries.
The prosecutor in Kish said the whole way the race was set up violated “public decency.” You can understand by this single word how seriously they took this whole incident.
The hijab debate sits right at the center of Iran’s future. Where is the country headed? Nobody really knows, but this issue shows the tension.
Sometimes the government loosens up a bit and doesn’t enforce the rules as strictly. Other times, they crack down hard on anyone who breaks them. It goes back and forth.
But some people also reacted in a different way. Lots of Iranians who want things to change got really excited. They saw these images as proof that women are standing up and refusing to follow the strict clothing rules anymore. For them, it was a victory.
Three years ago, huge protests swept through Iran for months. What started them? A young Kurdish Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini died while in police custody. She’d been arrested for supposedly not wearing her hijab correctly. Her death made people furious.
The government eventually stopped those protests by using force and arresting huge numbers of people. But even after that, plenty of Iranian women kept going out without head coverings. They weren’t backing down.
That defiance has made authorities push back harder lately. The head of the judiciary recently made it clear they’re getting serious again. Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei said intelligence agencies need to watch for what he called “organised trends promoting immorality and non veiling.” Basically, he wants them to track down anyone organizing resistance to the hijab rules.
So here we are. Iran’s leaders, on one side, and on the other side, tons of their own people, especially younger ones, who think women should be able to dress how they want. Neither side is giving up.
This marathon might seem like a small thing just some women going for a run. But in Iran right now, it’s become another battleground in a much bigger fight about freedom and control.
