Fact Check: No, Iran Has Not Repealed Its Hijab Ban

Iran hijab law is in the news, again. Less than a month after the three year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini, reports have emerged that Iran had on October 4, 2025 lifted its hijab ban. However, However, according to AFP, Iran has not formally repealed the law even though it may have relaxed its enforcement.

“Women in Iran are increasingly testing the boundaries of the country's strict Islamic dress code but a law requiring women to wear the hijab remains in force, according to rights groups and a government spokesman,” reports AFP Fact Check.

According to AFP, the false claim started on a Chinese-language social media site wherein posts cited an Iranian government advisor who said in October 2025 there was "no mandatory law regarding hijab"; he later walked back those remarks and said head coverings must be worn.

AFP is referring to statements made on October 4, 2025 by Mohammadreza Bahonar, a conservative member of Iran's Expediency Discernment Council. Bahonar suggested that the  law was "not legally enforceable," but later walked back his comments. After he received backlash from the fundamentalists within Iran, Bahonar has since retracted his statements and said that women in Iran must wear a hijab.

Iran’s legal requirement that women wear the hijab in public can be found in its Islamic Penal Code in Article 638. This remains on the country’s law books and has not struck down by any official government decree or legislation.

There are sporadic reports that the law’s enforcement varies across the country, and is somewhat relaxed in major urban areas like Tehran, while remaining strict in the smaller towns. The inconsistency of the enforcement has also led to women living in uncertainity.

In the last months of 2024, Iran suspended the implementation of its “Chastity and Hijab” law. The Iranian Supreme National Security Council, which had brought in the stricter punishments and penalties for non-compliance, most likely stopped its enforcement to avoid more public protests.

Protests against the hijab laws have included the "Girls of Enghelab Street" movement in 2017, which were inspired by a woman who removed her hijab. And, in 2022 the Mahsa Amini protests, which turned into a movement and demanded the end of the Islamic Republic. 

Amini, 22, was arrested and allegedly killed by Iran’s Guidance Patrol Police on her visit to Tehran for breaking the country’s mandatory hijab law for women by improperly wearing her hijab.

In Outlook’s April 21, 2023 issue titled Iran, explored the death of Amini and how it  ignited women-led protests in the country which defied the Iranian regime by cutting their hair publicly and walking without hijabs. Several women have lost their lives in months of protests. The issue is a homage to those who died and the ongoing women's movement in the country.

Within the issue, Seema Guha, Outlook’s Foreign Affairs Editor, wrote on how even after the mass protests may have discontinued in Iran, but women continue to resist silently in their own ways in An Unfolding Story Of Silent Rebellion Across Iran's Streets

In Women! Life! Freedom, Elnaz Sarbar Boczek peered into the resounding slogan that had become the rallying cry of the largest women’s rights movement in Iran’s history.

Navid Zarrinnal wrote on the imposition of Western morality in Iran and the Global South in Iran And Regime Change Amid Imposition Of Western Morality

The issue also explored the Iranian film industry’s portrayal of women in cinema over the decades through GP Ramachandran’s Beyond The Purdah Of Censorship and Abhik Bhattacharya’s interview with filmmaker with Mohsen Makhmalbaf in Hope Is Alive In Iran, Says Filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf.