According to local media, an Iranian bank manager who served a woman who was not wearing a head covering has been fired as protests over the requirement to cover one’s head rock the Islamic Republic.
The more than 80 million-person nation has a law requiring women to cover their heads, necks, and hair, which is upheld by the morality police.
Mahsa Amini, 22, was killed on September 16 while being held by morality police for allegedly breaking dress code regulations. This led to widespread protests that the government has labeled “riots.”
The bank manager in the province of Qom, close to the capital Tehran, “had provided bank services to an unveiled woman on Thursday,” according to Mehr news agency.
As a result he was “removed from his position by order of the governor,” Mehr quoted deputy governor Ahmad Hajizadeh as saying.
The majority of banks in Iran are run by the government, and according to Hajizadeh, it is the managers’ duty to enforce the hijab rule.
The protests, which Iran claims are being backed by its Western “enemy,” have resulted in the deaths of dozens of people, mostly protestors but also security personnel.
Four years after the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic Republic and toppled the US-backed monarchy, the headscarf was made obligatory.
Later, as fashion standards changed, it became commonplace to see women wearing loose, colorful headscarves and tight jeans.
But in July this year ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi called for mobilisation of “all state institutions to enforce the headscarf law”.
Many women continued to bend the rules, however.