Faced with an ever-increasing number of women violating the mandatory dress code, Iran’s Supreme Court Chief Justice has threatened to launch a “ruthless” prosecution of women who appear uncovered in public, Iranian media reported today, Saturday.

Gholamhussein Mohseni Ejay’s warning came after the Home Ministry on Thursday strengthened the government’s hijab law.

“Revelation is tantamount to hostility to (our) values,” Ejay said. Those who “commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and “pursued without mercy,” he said, without saying what the punishment entails.

The President of Iran’s Supreme Court stated that the police “are obliged to report to the courts on obvious crimes and any violations that are contrary to religious laws and manifest themselves in public.”

More and more Iranian women are ditching the headscarves, especially after the death of 22-year-old Mahshi Amini, who was arrested by the vice police in September last year. A young woman of Kurdish origin was detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule.

Despite this, at the risk of being arrested for violating the mandatory dress code, women can often be seen without headscarves in malls, restaurants, stores and on the streets across the country. Videos of uncovered women resisting the vice police have taken social media by storm.

Under Iranian Sharia law introduced after the 1979 revolution, women are required to cover their hair and wear long, loose clothing to hide their figure. Violators were threatened with public reprimands, fines or arrests.

Describing the hijab as “one of the cultural foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the fundamental principles of the Islamic Republic,” an interior ministry statement Thursday said there would be “no concessions or tolerance” on the issue.

The ministry called on ordinary citizens to deal with the “revealed” women. Such directives in previous decades encouraged hardliners to attack women with impunity.

Source: Reuters.