Women who violate the Islamic dress code will be punished, Iran's chief justice, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, said this morning, according to the official IRNA news agency. The president of Iran's supreme court has thus reaffirmed the law on the compulsory use of the headscarf, which sparked months of protests that were drowned out by a deadly crackdown.
"Removing the hijab is tantamount to showing enmity towards the Islamic Republic and its values. People who participate in such an abnormal act will be punished," Ejei said, adding that "the authorities will use all available means to deal with people who cooperate with the enemy and commit this sin that harms public order".
The death on September 16 of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian of Kurdish origin, while in police custody for violating the dress code sparked nationwide protests that posed one of the toughest challenges to the Islamic regime since its establishment in 1979. In In recent weeks, an increasingly severe crackdown by security forces has largely put down the riots.
This comes on the same day that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called for the perpetrators of the school poisonings of girls to be punished as the attacks spread across the country. The ayatollah has ensured that poisonings are a "major and unforgivable crime" and the perpetrators must face the "most severe punishment" for incidents that have sown fear among parents and throughout Iranian society.
Shortly after Khamenei's comments, the president of Iran's supreme court vowed that the courts would act quickly and suggested that those responsible would face the death penalty. "By the definition in law, the perpetrators are undoubtedly guilty of 'corruption on earth,'" said Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, referring to a formal charge used by the Iranian judiciary that carries the death sentence.
The first case of schoolgirls showing symptoms of poisoning occurred in the religious city of Qom in late November, where dozens of girls were taken to hospital. Many similar cases have continued to occur in primary and secondary schools before spreading to the capital Tehran and at least two other cities in early March.
