Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy(IMSD) strongly condemns the repressive Iranian regime, questions the hypocrisy of the Muslim clergy in India

– IMSD

Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) strongly condemns the Iranian State’s obscurantist, authoritarian laws and their murderous enforcement, as also the denial of the citizens’ right to protest.  In this third decade of the 21st century it’s inhuman and barbaric to kill a fellow human being merely for not covering her head.

At the same time, we question the hypocrisy of India’s Muslim clergy in not supporting the Iranian women’s right to choose, an argument it puts forward in the context of the ongoing hijab controversy in India.

The world is witnessing a horrendous turn of events in Iran where State atrocity has caused the custodial murder of a 22-years-old young woman, MahasaAmini , just for taking off her head cover. No less shocking is the fact that those protesting the murder by peacefully defying the mandatory head covering are being subjected to violence, humiliation and arrests on the streets by the police.

The news and real time videos coming from Tehran and other parts of Iran are heart wrenching. However the heart-warming aspect of these protests is the active support of young Iranian men who are opposing both archaic traditional practices and State atrocities.

In this epochal moment, the Indian clergy and conservative Muslims in general that support mandatory head covering for Muslim women, citing the principle of right to choose attire, must be questioned whether they support Iranian women’s ‘right to choose or refuse head coverings’?

It will be hypocritical of all those  who tom-tom this liberal democratic argument that ‘forced removal of burqa, naqab, hijab is against the basic human rights of a woman’, but who do not come forward in support of Iranian women of different faiths who are forced to cover their heads in consonance with Islamic Shariah practices of Iran. It is to be noted here that in Iran the rule of mandatory head covering is applicable to Muslims and non-Muslims alike.

IMSD calls upon the civil society in India to challenge the hypocrisy of those religious power elite who choose the liberal principles of Indian constitution as per their fundamentalist and misogynistic conveniences while they remain tight lipped when these principles are flouted against the progressive aspirations of the citizens in Islamic State.