From Tehran 1979 to Tehran Today: A War on Women That Never Ended
In March 1979, tens of thousands of Iranian women filled the streets of Tehran to protest the newly imposed compulsory hijab (Picture). They knew what was coming: not a cultural “choice”, but a political weapon. More than four decades later, the warning of those women has become reality. The Islamic Republic institutionalised control over female bodies and turned clothing into an instrument of obedience. The death of Mahsa Amini ignited a new wave of resistance. What followed was not a temporary disturbance, but a nationwide uprising that merged women’s rights, economic despair, generational anger and political rebellion. Iranian women did not protest fashion rules. They protested humiliation, violence, and systematic degradation. What we are witnessing today is not a “religious debate”. It is a confrontation between authoritarian fundamentalism and human dignity.
Islamic Violence and the Anatomy of Repression
The current protest cycle in Iran has been met with extreme force. Independent monitoring organisations report thousands of deaths, mass arrests, torture, internet shutdowns and public executions disguised as “law enforcement”. Entire neighbourhoods have been militarised. Families are threatened into silence. Bodies disappear. This violence is not accidental. It is structural. The Islamic regime uses terror as governance. Women are targeted with particular brutality because they symbolize resistance. Removing the headscarf is treated as political rebellion. Dancing becomes a crime. Speaking becomes treason. This is how fundamentalism survives: not through belief, but through fear. And this violence is not limited to Iran. It is part of a global ideological ecosystem that normalises submission, glorifies male control and portrays female autonomy as moral decay. When European societies ignore this reality, they become indirectly complicit.
Where Is European Feminism When It Is Needed Most?
European feminism once stood for liberation from imposed roles, bodily control and patriarchal authority. Yet today, an uncomfortable contradiction has emerged. On the one hand, European activists loudly defend women’s rights at home. On the other hand, many remain silent when Islamic fundamentalism imposes systematic humiliation on women abroad — or worse, justify it under the banner of “cultural sensitivity”.
Across Europe, governments are now forced to confront this contradiction through legislation. In Austria, Parliament has approved a school ban on headscarves for girls under the age of 14, scheduled to enter into force in 2026. The political justification is explicit: protecting children from ideological pressure and safeguarding equal development opportunities. Surveys conducted by Austrian public broadcasters show majority public support for restricting religious symbols in compulsory education environments.
In Sweden, there is no national ban on headscarves in schools. However, government-funded social studies and child protection reports have repeatedly documented cases of honor-based control and family pressure, particularly affecting teenage girls in segregated migrant communities. Swedish authorities estimate that tens of thousands of minors live under social environments influenced by religious coercion, prompting new prevention programs targeting radicalisation and gender segregation.
Finland follows a liberal legal approach by allowing religious clothing in schools, but its relative integration success is not the result of permissive policy alone. Finland has received significantly fewer migrants — roughly three times less than Sweden — and has focused strongly on rapid labour-market integration, language acquisition and early social inclusion. This lower demographic pressure has helped prevent the formation of large parallel communities. However, even in Finland, crime and sexual violence linked to recent migration waves have increased, showing that the model remains fragile. In countries with higher immigration volumes and weaker labour integration, stricter child-protection and anti-radicalisation rules are not optional — they are necessary.
In Italy, the state has focused primarily on banning full-face coverings such as niqab and burqa in public spaces for security and identification reasons. While headscarves remain legal, regional authorities increasingly debate child protection measures in public schools, particularly after rising concerns about parallel religious schooling networks.
Let us be clear: freedom does not mean accepting violence in the name of diversity. Tolerance does not mean legitimising degradation. Choice does not exist when fear and coercion dominate. Allowing families influenced by years of fundamentalist indoctrination to impose mandatory headscarves on children is not empowerment. It is the reproduction of submission. It damages integration, traps girls in inherited inequality, and builds parallel value systems that conflict with democratic equality. When feminism refuses to confront this reality, it betrays its own foundations.
Why This Moment Matters: The Collapse of Fear
Iran’s protests represent something larger than political unrest. They signal a crack in the architecture of religious authoritarianism. Young women, students, workers and families are no longer afraid. That is the most dangerous development for any dictatorship. This moment demands international moral clarity. European institutions, civil society and feminist movements should publicly condemn compulsory veiling as a human rights violation, support Iranian women’s resistance with diplomatic pressure and sanctions, defend universal bodily autonomy without ideological exceptions, and reject the normalisation of fundamentalist control in migrant communities. This is not about attacking religion. It is about defending freedom. The Iranian women of 1979 warned the world. The women of today are paying the price. The question now is whether Europe will finally listen — or once again choose comfortable silence over moral responsibility. Feminism that refuses to confront authoritarian religious violence is not feminism at all.
Image Credit: Hengameh Golestan (1979). Used for editorial and historical documentation purposes. All rights remain with the original rights holder.
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