Iran to open mental health clinic to treat women refusing to wear hijab
- 14 November, 08:55
Iranian women who refuse wearing hijab, the compulsory Islamic head cover, will be treated at a special mental health clinic in capital Tehran.
The center called the Clinic for Quitting Hijab Removal, will provide "scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal," said Mehri Talebi Darestani, who will oversee the facility.
“The establishment of this center will be for the scientific and psychological treatment of removing the hijab, specifically for the teenage generation, young adults, and women seeking social and Islamic identity and visiting this center is optional," Darestani explained.
Iran’s Headquarters for Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil that is responsible for enforcing strict religious standards across society, will be in charge of the new clinic in Tehran. The government body that is under sanctions of various countries for its human rights abuses is lead by Mohammed Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani, who was directly appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
The opening of the controversial mental health clinic is the government’s latest attempt to crackdown on female dissent that swept Iran since the “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising in 2022. The anti-hijab movement gained momentum after the death of the 22-year-old Masha Amini who died in custody after being detained in Tehran in 2022 for not wearing her hijab properly. The United Nations has labelled widespread persecution of women in Iran as “gender apartheid”.
Earlier this month, a female university student in Tehran was taken to mental institution after she stripped to her underwear to protest against the demands to wear hijab.
