Iran has arrested four people for allegedly providing a foreign broadcaster with a video of an altercation between a Shia cleric and a woman without a headscarf, Iranian media reported on Tuesday.
CCTV footage of the altercation at Iran’s Shia clerical center in Qom went viral on social media and was broadcast by London-based news channel Iran International, which is considered a “hostile media” by Tehran authorities.
In the video, the woman is confronted by a cleric who allegedly filmed her waiting with her children at a clinic in Qom without wearing a headscarf, a practice that has not allowed women to wear headscarves in public since the years after the 1979 revolution. Wearing a headscarf is mandatory on the occasion.
Qom deputy prosecutor Ruhollah Moslemhkani said the four “main publishers and senders” of the video were “enemies” [Iran] According to the Fars news agency, the “international network” has been arrested.
“We know and are convinced that there was a deliberate plan and orchestration to cause division and incitement in society,” he said.
Controversy over mandatory dress codes has reignited since Mahsa Amini died in custody in September 2022 after being arrested for alleged violations.
Her death sparked nationwide protests that authorities blamed on instigation by Western governments and foreign Farsi-language media.
