One of the women who protested on the street last week by taking off her scarf, and who requested anonymity out of fear of being arrested, said that the report was helpful, but that it did not go far enough. Women are demanding full freedom, the 28-year-old woman said, adding that the report showed that many people agreed with that view.

This past week, dozens of women made the same symbolic gesture and shared their actions on social media: taking off their head scarves in public and waving them on a stick. They were emulating a young woman who had climbed onto a utility box on Dec. 27, removed her scarf and was subsequently arrested. Activists say she has since been released, but she still has not resurfaced in public.

The protests, while small in number, are nevertheless significant as a rare public sign that dissatisfaction with certain Islamic laws governing personal conduct may have reached a tipping point in Iran.

The first protest in December took place on a Wednesday and seemed connected to the White Wednesday campaign, an initiative by Masih Alinejad, an exiled Iranian journalist and activist living in the United States. Ms. Alinejad has reached out to Iranian women on Persian-language satellite television, through social media and through a website she runs called My Stealthy Freedom. On the website, women post images of themselves without head scarves, demanding an end to the compulsory head scarf law.

The Islamic head scarf, or hijab, is seen by Iranian ideologues as a pillar of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The law regarding the scarf has been enforced since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and a head scarf is obligatory for every woman in the country, even tourists and visiting foreign dignitaries.

Although women are subject to broader laws on matters like divorce and inheritance, the hijab is a highly public symbol of the rules imposed by Iran’s clerical leaders. Rules are also imposed on men, who are not allowed to wear shorts in public.

Many Iranians now resent such restrictions as the country has grown more secular, and are increasingly flouting them.