Iran’s ‘treatment clinic’ for women who refuse to wear hijab branded ‘chilling’

Women who refuse to wear a hijab in Iran will be given treatment at a mental health clinic in the capital Tehran.

The Iranian state announced that the centre will be called the Clinic for Quitting Hijab Removal.

Mehri Talebi Darestani will run the centre and said it ‘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’.

She also said it is focused on promoting ‘dignity, modesty, chastity, and hijab’ and claimed that attendance would be ‘optional’.

But the development of the clinic has sparked outrage from human rights groups.

This also includes from UK-based Iranian journalist Sima Sabet, who was the victim of an Iranian assassination attempt last year and who described the latest news as ‘shameful’.

She said: ‘The idea of establishing clinics to ‘cure’ unveiled women is chilling, where people are separated from society simply for not conforming to the ruling ideology.’

Meanwhile Iranian human rights lawyer Hossein Raeesi said the clinic does not comply with hijab laws and is ‘neither Islamic and nor is it aligned with Iranian law’.

The clinic will also be overseen by the government body responsible for enforcing strict religious standards across society.

It is Iran’s Headquarters for Enjoining the Good and Forbidding the Evil and is sanctioned by the UK and other countries over its human rights record.

Mohammed Saleh Hashemi Golpayegani heads up the body and was responsible for appointing Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

This is the Iranian’s state’s latest attempt to quash female autonomy which was sparked from the’Woman, Life, Freedom’ uprising that started in 2022.

Just this month, a student in Tehran stripped to her underwear to protest against demands for women to wear the hijab.

She was branded by the state as mentally ill and was taken to a psychiatric facility.

Four Iranian psychiatric associations issued a joint statement last year condemning women as mentally ill who did not wear a hijab.

They said: ‘The diagnosis of mental disorders is within the competence of a psychiatrist, not a judge, just as the diagnosis of other diseases is in the competence of doctors, not judges.’

Mahsa Amini died in police custody in Tehran in 2022 after she was arrested for not wearing her hijab properly.

Her death has since sparked the anti-hijab movement across Iran.

The state has attempted to quash these protests through increased covert surveillance, a stronger morality police presence, and bans on unveiled women entering public spaces such as malls and parks.

This has been labelled as ‘gender apartheid’ by the UN and in March, Amnesty International also said there is torture, violence and forced medication being used on protesters.

Diana Eltahawy, Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director, said: ‘In a sinister attempt to wear down resistance to compulsory veiling in the wake of the ‘Woman Life Freedom’ uprising, Iran’s authorities are terrorising women and girls by subjecting them to constant surveillance and policing, disrupting their daily lives and causing them immense mental distress.

‘Their draconian tactics span from stopping women drivers on the road and carrying out mass confiscation of their vehicles to imposing inhumane flogging and prison sentences.’

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