I reported a couple of weeks ago on an incident in the Iranian city of Qom where a young woman angrily confronted a cleric for taking photos of her for not wearing a veil.

Below is a French follow-up to the story, which provides more background details on what happened. Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from France24:

#IAmAlsoASlut: Iranian women launch a hashtag against harassment by the mullahs

In a hospital in the very religious city of Qom, a woman, her sick child in her arms, was taken to task by a mullah because her veil was down on her shoulders. The video surveillance of the scene, posted on March 9, caused an outcry in Iran, women accusing the mullah, cell phone in hand, of wanting to report the mother using an app from the Islamic regime. Its users called the woman a “slut”… and unleashed a massive reaction on social media.

March 13, 2024

[Caption: Video appeared on March 9 on social media in Iran showing a young mother accusing a mullah of taking pictures of her and her child without asking her for permission. The mullah is accused of using an app furnished by the government.]

An initial excerpt of the video surveillance camera of the hospital shows the mother crouched in a corner, the veil on her shoulders, and her hair visible while a mullah stands nearby and uses his phone.

In a second excerpt. we see the angry mother, who accosts the mullah, whom she accuses of taking photos of her and her child without her permission. “Give me your phone, let me see the photo, and delete it,” she says. Several other women, some wearing hijabs, others not, come to her aid. One of them seizes the phone from the hands of the mullah and checks it.

A year and a half after the start of the demonstrations by the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in September 2022, Iranian women reacted to these images with vehemence. The videos of the scene have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times on social media.

Many comments suggest that the mullah was using an app furnished by the government on his telephone, known under the name of “Nazer” (observer or informant in Persian). It is furnished to informers approved by the Iranian government, to notify authorities of violations of the wearing of the veil to which they are witness. The women who are reported receive “unveiling notifications” by text message, in some cases, sanctions such as the confiscation of their vehicle.

In this message posted March 9, 2024, Iranian women share excerpts from the video surveillance camera of a hospital in Qom, in which is seen the mother accusing the mullah of having taken photos of her with her sick child. The mullah is called a “dirty pig” because he is suspected of having used an app furnished by the government to report the young woman for not wearing hijab.

For supporters of the regime, “shameless behavior”

On March 10, 2024, the general prosecutor of Qom, also a mullah, announced his strong support of the mullah in the video. “We are pursuing the disruptors of public order and the people implicated in the dissemination of the video on social media and Persian opposition media abroad,” he declared. On March 12, the deputy prosecutor of the city, Rohollah Moslemkhani, told local media that four persons had been arrested for disseminating the video.

On social media, pro-regime users placed responsibility on the mother. Some accused her of “shameless behavior”. They used the Persian insult, “salifeh”, which can be translated as “slut” because she let her scarf fall down to her shoulders while she was taking care of her child.

What was the mullah doing with his phone?

After the death of Mahsa Amini subsequent to her detention by the Iranian morality police in September 2022 and the massive demonstrations that followed, the Islamic Republic changed strategy. The morality police street patrols were discontinued, and the regime exhorted Iranian citizens to report women in public without hijabs.

The regime created websites, telephone lines, and a smartphone app allowing citizens to easily report women without the veil. The citizens who download the app, Nazer, must register, be approved, and take a brief training course. Their reports are then used to impose fines, and even, in certain cases, arrest the women reported.

The partisans of the Woman, Life, Liberty movement reacted by creating the hashtag #IAmAlsoASlut to express their support for the mother. “The Woman, Life, Liberty revolution is alive,” writes one woman on X. “It cannot be stopped, and it has an impact on our lives and our culture every time the occasion presents itself. Sometimes, we resist by removing our scarves, sometimes by using the words: #I am a slut too”.