Sepideh Rashno's Account of Her Hijab-Free Trip to Her Hometown: 'Women, Life, Freedom' Is Not Just for Tehran

Sepideh Rashno, a civil activist opposing mandatory hijab, shared a memory from her trip to her parents' home in Khorramabad, discussing family pressures to wear a hijab and her own resistance. In response to her brother's reminder that 'Khorramabad is not Tehran,' she stated, 'Women, life, freedom is not just for Tehran.' In a narrative posted on Instagram on Thursday, January 21, along with a photo of herself without a mandatory hijab in front of a rural house in Khorramabad, she recounted how her brother, Saman, asked her to bring a scarf because 'it’s not Tehran there' and that their father would 'get upset.' This civil activist opposing mandatory hijab explained her response to her brother: 'With a teasing smile, I said: Women, life, freedom is not just for Tehran.' She noted that due to her opposition to mandatory hijab and her arrest last year, she has been suspended from university and has been barred from leaving Tehran. Following these rulings, she not only refused to wear a hijab but also 'gave up on university and studying,' even accepting her family's displeasure over this decision. Rashno mentioned that her mother asked her to wear a hat to avoid catching a cold, but she refused. When her father saw her without a hijab, he angrily yelled at her mother, saying, 'You don’t know how to tell your child how to dress' and 'You don’t understand this is a village and we have dignity.' She also stated that she asked her father to speak directly to her, and although 'there was another fight,' she felt 'something has changed forever' and 'he knows that nothing can stop me anymore.' This civil activist emphasized that she returned to her hometown 'with a truth she no longer wants to hide from anyone' to write on the face of her hometown, on the face of the village, 'Long live all the barriers that have been broken, and long live all the barrier-breakers.' Sepideh Rashno said: 'Let it be written, long live the conquerors standing on the barriers, long live the lives.' Following the publication of this account, the mother of the late blogger Sattar Beheshti, who died in custody under torture, reacted to Sepideh Rashno's statements on social media, saying that 'with every word' from this account, she felt 'the power against the oppressor and love for the homeland.' Gohar Eshghi addressed Sepideh Rashno, saying, 'I believe in a spring where the blossoms of hope will sprout, and you and all the girls of my land will be free in it.' Despite the increasing pressures from various institutions of the Islamic Republic on women to maintain mandatory hijab, civil disobedience against it continues. In recent days, Maryam Dehkordi, a women's rights activist, told Voice of America that the civil resistance of Iranian women against mandatory hijab is not limited to one region and is ongoing throughout the country.