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Recent polling data has shown widespread opposition to compulsory hijab-wearing in Iran across both gender and age. Will emerging liberalism threaten the existence of the Islamic Republic?
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In mid-2022, mass protests erupted across Iran in response to the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was arrested by Iran’s Morality Police. The alleged crime — incorrectly wearing her hijab.
Amini later died while in custody, with reports that she was beaten by the morality police.
Shortly after reports of her death emerged, protests broke out across the nation. To date, over 400 protestors are estimated to have been killed by the regime.
The regime accused the West of fomenting the protests.
“In the recent riots, political leaders of America and, sometimes, Europe, as well as their media and hostile Persian-language outlets backed by the West abused a sad event that is being investigated, and went the extra mile in support of rioters and disruptors of national security under the pretext of support for human rights," the regime argued.
Getting insight into the evolving events on the ground has proven difficult.
From the outset of the protests, the regime began restricting internet coverage. A common tactic employed by the regime when mass protests erupt every few years.
According to the White House, the regime commenced “cutting off mobile data; disrupting popular social media platforms; throttling Internet service; and blocking individual users, encrypted DNS services, text messages, and access entirely.”
Calculating the desire for change, secularisation and liberalism in Iran have thus proven difficult.
However, recent data collected by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change in partnership with the market research foundation Group for Analyzing and Measuring Attitudes in Iran (GAMAAN) shone a spotlight on the growing rejection among the Iranian public of some of the fundamental tenets of the regime.
To develop the findings, the market research utilised encrypted online surveys to ameliorate the risk of individuals providing incorrect answers through fear of retribution.
“Instead of conventional face-to-face or telephone-based polling methods, GAMAAN uses encrypted online surveys with large and varied samples that produce an accurate representation of Iranian society, allowing Iranians to answer questions about sensitive subjects truthfully, without fearing for their safety,” the findings stated.
The findings revealed opposition to compulsory hijab-wearing across gender and age.
According to the findings:
- 20 to 29 years of age: 78 per cent opposition to the hijab laws
- 30 to 49: 68 per cent
- Over 50: 74 per cent
Interestingly, the data indicated opposition to mandatory hijab laws across both genders, with 71 per cent of men and 75 per cent of women disagreeing with the laws respectively.
“While some commentators in the West have suggested that a change in the mandatory hijab law may placate protestors, GAMAAN’s polling underlines that the Iranian people’s anti-compulsory-hijab stance is just the tip of the iceberg,” the research’s authors found.
“Their secular demands are not solely focused on the compulsory hijab; rather they are a challenge to the Islamic Republic in its entirety. Iranians who oppose the compulsory imposition of the hijab also want regime change enabled through the creation of a secular government.”
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