The demonstrations began to make news late last year, focusing largely on economic hardship. As those protests continued in cities around the country, another movement re-emerged: young women standing up against the enforcement of conservative Muslim strictures on their dress and behavior.

Similar protests have gone on for years, sometimes unnoticed outside Iran.

Atefeh Ahmadi, a 29-year-old freelance translator from Tehran, says she was intrigued when she started seeing the resurgence of images and videos of women standing on electrical boxes in public squares and removing their headscarves.

“I saw the videos and I thought to myself, this could do some good if it’s an ongoing thing,” she tells NPR. So one day, she tried it herself, and the video and photographs of her went viral on social media.

Then on March 8 — International Women’s Day — she tried a new kind of protest.

“Me and two of my friends went to the subway,” she says. “We sat in the women-only car and sang a well-known feminist song. We also handed out pamphlets promoting women’s rights.”

In the song’s chorus, the trio repeated the words: “I am a woman.”

Ahmadi says they were almost arrested that day but managed to escape.

The protest drew attention and, after she was publicly identified in a documentary as one of the participants, she chose to leave Iran for Turkey later in March.

Meanwhile, the protests continued and spread beyond the headscarf. Women posted videos and images of themselves singing and dancing, which is prohibited under Iran’s strict version of Islam.

A Facebook page called “My Stealthy Freedom,” started in 2014 by New York-based Iranian activist Masih Alinejad, features photos and videos of women defying Iran’s headscarf law.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2018/08/03/631784518/in-iran-protests-women-stand-up-lift-their-hijab-for-their-rights