Woman arrested after stripping off and wearing underwear at Iran's university

A woman was arrested outside an Iranian university campus for stripping down to her underwear in protest against the country's strict dress code, according to social media reports and local media reports.

A video circulating on X and Instagram showed the unidentified woman sitting on part of an outdoor staircase at Islamic Azad University in Tehran. In the minute-long video, filmed from a nearby building, she spoke briefly to a man in a blue shirt before pacing with her arms crossed in her socks and underwear.

Another video on X shows the woman walking next to a row of parked cars and then wrestling with several people next to one of the vehicles.

CBC News has not independently verified the footage or determined what happened before and after the videos were filmed.

Amnesty Iran, a division of Amnesty International, shared one of the woman's videos online, saying she was protesting “the unlawful enforcement of the mandatory headscarf by security officials” at the school. The organization called for her immediate release.

“Pending her release, authorities must protect her from torture and other ill-treatment and ensure access to family and lawyers. Allegations of assault and sexual violence against her during her arrest require independent and impartial investigation. Those responsible must [be] held accountable,” read a message on X.

The UN Special Rapporteur on the Islamic Republic of Iran said she was also aware of the arrest.

“I will be closely monitoring this incident, including the authorities' response,” Mai Sato wrote on X.

The Amir Kabir Newsletter, a social media outlet for students, said in an Instagram post that members of an Iranian volunteer paramilitary group tore the woman's headscarf and clothing, while the state-run Fars News Agency said the student “inappropriately clothing” and “stripped naked” after guards spoke to her about her clothing.

In a series of his own posts on

“It was determined at the police station that she was under severe mental pressure and had a mental disorder,” he said wrote.

According to the Iranian dress code, women must wear a headscarf and loose-fitting clothing in public. It is not clear what the woman was wearing before taking off her clothes.

The arrest comes more than two years after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died following her arrest by Iran's moral police for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly in violation of the national dress code. The widespread protests following her death became one of the most intense challenges to the theocratic regime since the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

The country's new reformist president, Masoud Pezeshkian, campaigned on a promise to end the harassment of women by the vice squad. Yet since Amini's death, videos have emerged of officers abusing women and girls.

In 2023, an Iranian teenage girl was injured in a mysterious incident in Tehran's metro while not wearing a headscarf, and later died in hospital. In July, activists said police opened fire on a woman fleeing a checkpoint in an attempt to avoid having her car impounded for not wearing her hijab.

The pre-reform newspaper Ham-Mihan reported in August on an unpublished survey, conducted under the supervision of Iran's Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, which found that the hijab had become one of the most important issues in the country – something it had never done before. had seen. .

“This issue concerns people more than ever,” sociologist Simin Kazemi told the newspaper.