Civil Disobedience Against Mandatory Hijab; Sepideh Rashno Summoned to Prison

Sepideh Rashno, a civil activist opposing mandatory hijab, announced that her sentence of three years and seven months in prison has been executed and she has been summoned to the criminal enforcement branch of the public and revolutionary prosecutor's office in district 33 of Tehran. On Wednesday, January 19, she posted a picture of the notification on her Instagram account, stating: "I didn't think my first task today would be checking the execution notification; especially for an incident that happened two years ago. This notification is for the execution of the 'three years and seven months' sentence from the first case (BRT bus incident)." According to this civil activist, "the sentence of the second case (informing about the suspension from university) has been converted from six months in prison to a monetary fine, but it still enforces the suspension sentence" and "the request for retrial has been registered for the third time." Sepideh Rashno added: "The second case was solely for informing about the university suspension and posting a photo of myself (the first Instagram post). The file states: 'publication of an obscene photo.' My own photo!" Previously, in August of this year, Sepideh Rashno announced in a video that she would present herself to Evin Prison for the execution of her sentence, but the execution was suspended, and then her brother, Saman Rashno, reported that "the second retrial has been registered, and we hope that by changing the title of the accusation in the second case, the suspended prison sentence of the first case will not be executed." Sepideh Rashno, a writer and artist, is known in Iran for her outspoken opposition to mandatory hijab. She was arrested in July 2022 following a dispute with a woman who tried to force her to comply with the mandatory hijab in a city bus. During her detention, with visible bruises on her face, she was forced to appear in front of the state television camera and "apologize" for her behavior in a "forced confession." This incident, which occurred in early summer 2022, coincided with the government-sanctioned "Hijab and Chastity Day" and sparked a wave of citizen reactions in social media and online platforms, just weeks before the death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the morality police.