At the very same time images circulate of Iranian female athletes celebrating their victory at the Asian Games by dancing without a headscarf to Kurdish music, the head of the Islamic Republic’s judiciary is demanding a harsh crackdown on women who go unveiled. On one side is an act of spontaneous joy; on the other, an apparatus that perceives it as a threat. ‘Tah nadâre’ means “it has no bottom”—a phrase that perfectly describes a form of disobedience that cannot be exhausted by repression. The Aichi-Nagoya Asian Games have been underway in Japan since September 19, serving as an international stage for Iranian athletes. That dance to Kurdish rhythms—a tribute that, just days ahead of the fourth anniversary, directly evokes the memory of Iranian Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini—transcends simple celebration, transforming into a message of resistance and solidarity linking the country’s minorities to the nation as a whole. While Tehran attempts to lock down physical space with new laws, the true thorn in the side of power is this: a mass daily disobedience that normalizes unveiled life and drains the energy of an apparatus forced into exhaustive, capillary control. And as the regime tightens its grip, social media amplifies this resistance on a global scale, turning the digital realm into a battlefield that censorship cannot fence in.
In Iran, a de facto ban prohibits women from singing solo in public or dancing, enforced through laws on public morality and the mandatory hijab. Public dancing—especially mixed-gender dancing or events featuring music deemed “immoral”—is prosecuted through various statutes: laws against “corruption of public morals” (mafased-e akhlaghi), mandatory hijab regulations if the dancing involves appearing unveiled, and rigid event permits that effectively rule out any authorization for mixed dance parties. Women dancing publicly is systematically penalized: arrests have been made over dance videos posted online, and wedding celebrations featuring music and dance have faced bans. Yet it is not the first time a sports celebration has turned into a political flashpoint. In July 2025, FIBA deleted within about two hours a video of the Iranian women’s national basketball team celebrating with a dance in a moment of pure, spontaneous joy, following a complaint from Tehran authorities who deemed it “un-Islamic.” This time, the regime’s coordinated response arrived on Monday, September 28. Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei—one of the most powerful, influential, and hardline figures in the political and judicial apparatus of the Islamic Republic of Iran—spoke before the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, urging the prosecutor-general to take decisive action against women appearing in public without a veil, which he termed “nudity.” He added that both President Pezeshkian and the speaker of Parliament support the move. This is hardly unprecedented: back in November 2025, speaking in Qom, Mohseni-Ejei had already framed the rejection of the hijab as the work of Iran’s foreign adversaries and hostile powers. The paradox is that every prohibition creates new avenues for defiance. In 2022, rock climber Elnaz Rekabi competed in Seoul wearing only a simple headband, and upon her return, she was greeted by a jubilant crowd at the Tehran airport. Athletes who defy the rules are frequently celebrated as heroines by public opinion. A sports victory lived with lightness, a dance shared online—these are small gestures, but the regime experiences them as a challenge precisely because they cannot be easily penalized or erased.
This is the evolution of a crackdown that began in the wake of Jina Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022. Behind the facade of temporarily pulling the morality police from the streets, Parliament passed the “Chastity and Hijab” law in 2024, initiating a three-year trial period carrying severe penalties. With today’s move, the regime is silencing any ambiguity, closing off every margin of tolerance, and shifting toward a full-scale judicial and repressive offensive. By demanding that the prosecutor-general act decisively and placing the issue “immediately on the agenda,” the authorities expect courts and prosecutors to treat the failure to wear a hijab no longer as a minor administrative infraction, but as a crime to be prosecuted immediately and severely. Consequently, the regime has resolved to reclaim control over both public and digital spaces with an iron fist, seeking to terrorize anyone who considered that small daily freedom to be secure.
