Iranian woman confronts cleric in viral video, removes his turban to use it as hijab

A video from Iran showing an angry woman confronting a cleric at an airport in Mehrabad has gone viral. The woman, who has not been identified, wasn't wearing a hijab despite Iranian laws mandating one. 

The video, posted on social media by Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad, shows the woman confronting the cleric, before angrily removing his turban. She is heard shouting,"So you have honour now?" in the video.

The woman also questions the cleric about her husband. "What did you do to my husband?" It is unclear when the incident happened.

Alinejad claimed the woman confronted a cleric harassing her for not wearing a hijab.  "'In a bold act of defiance, she removed his turban and wore it like a scarf, turning oppression into resistance. For years, clerics have claimed their turbans and robes are sacred and untouchable, but this woman’s act of protest shattered that myth. Iranian women are exhausted and enraged by gender apartheid," she posted.

However, Mashregh News, a media outlet affiliated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), reported that the incident was unrelated to hijab and claimed the woman had "psychological problems." It added that the woman was detained for some time, but later released "with the consent of the complainants." 

However, social media users rubbished Mashregh News for misrepresenting the incident as a psychological issue and called it a powerful act of protest. "Her transformation of the turban into a mandatory scarf is an innovative form of resistance," one user said.

Another wrote: "That is a lady who has just had enough. You cannot scare people who reach that point. Courage and its shadow of defiance wins out in the end."

This isn't the first time that such acts of defiance come from Iran. Last November, a female student at the Azad University in Tehran’s Science and Research was seen stripping down to her undergarments, in what many called a protest against the regime. However, the officials claimed she was mentally unstable. The official narrative was countered by Iranian psychology and psychiatry associations who hit out at the government last year for misusing psychiatry and psychology to suppress opposition to mandatory hijab.