Well, that's because all these things, including women
showing their hair in public, have actually been illegal in Iran
since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, when Iran's king was overthrown
and this cleric, Ayatollah Khomeini, basically took over
and established the current regime,
Now, starting in 1979, under Ayatollah Khomeini's rule,
Music was banned. Yes, music was banned.
Ayatollah Khomeini compared it to opium.
Someone who decides to listen to music ... will become sick
like a heroin addict.
Musical instruments were also banned.
In other words, buying and selling musical instruments
was actually a crime.
Singing was banned, especially women singing solo in public.
And of course, not covering your hair as a woman was banned.
Cassette tapes containing Western music were banned,
which is very ironic considering Khomeini recorded
his revolutionary sermons onto cassette tapes,
which were then smuggled into Iran from exile in France
before he ascended to power.
Public mingling with someone of the opposite sex
who is not related to you by blood or marriage, also banned.
And this ban extended to beaches, schools and so many other places.
Chess, a game with centuries of history in Iran,
South Asia and the Arab world, banned.
VHS tapes and other home video technology...
Dancing in public, especially by women...
Attending live sports matches as a woman...
Wearing lipstick and nail polish as a woman...
You can see that there's a... a little bit of a...
There's a woman trend here.
Alcohol...
Short sleeves and shorts for men...
Jeans...
Oh, and ties. Yes, the ties that you wear with a suit...
Apparently they were symbols of Western culture.
And there's so many other bans that I can't fit into this video.
Now, even though these bans were rarely written into law,
Iran's new regime served very strict punishments
to those who violated them.
Their dance on a Tehran rooftop offended Iranian authorities so much
they were tracked down and taken into custody.
But Iranians repeatedly defied these bans throughout the years,
bans that they saw as oppressive and unjust.
Iranian women are posting photos and videos
of themselves riding bicycles.
after Iran's supreme leader issued a fatwa
banning women from riding bikes.
So they forced the regime's hand in some ways to lift
or lessen the enforcement of some of them,
but not all.
The head covering restrictions, for example,
are still very, very much in place.
"Don't do this to them!"﻿
"Dishonorable! How dare you!"
“Let me go!”
But Iranian women who don't want to cover have, here and there,
practiced civil disobedience to expand the limits
of what's possible, especially in recent years.
In terms of the outright ban on music, that was eventually lifted.
But the focus was still very much on policing Western music.
Rock ’n’ roll music is illegal in Iran.
Everything's a little bit illegal, and a little bit not.
It depends on how you play it.
The ban on home video technology, lipstick, short sleeves for men,
chess – these were also lifted.
As was the ban on musical instruments.
You just can't show them being played on state TV.
Which has led to very strange moments, like this:
And of course, some things have been banned, and then unbanned,
and then banned again.
Or new bans have been put in place,
like the one on satellite dishes or on many, many websites.
Other times, exceptions have been made.
Anyway, I'm sure you can understand
how confusing and frustrating this can be to the people of Iran,
especially because the policing of all this can be really, really selective.
That said, again, many bans have remained in place
throughout the years, such as the ban on women
not wearing a headscarf or singing solo
in front of mixed-gender audiences,
along with the bans on certain kinds of public mingling
between sexes and public dancing and so on.
In terms of public dancing, authorities have sometimes
turned a blind eye to it,
especially when it's a positive PR moment for the government.
On the whole, people mostly women and girls, are still arrested
for dancing if authorities consider it to be
“immoral” or “indecent.”
It's a teenager posting a video of herself,
dancing on Instagram. It got her arrested.
But today, Iranians’ individual acts of civil disobedience
have become collective acts that have spread to every corner
of the country.
And we're witnessing it right now
on social media.
They’re dancing in public, singing in public, kissing in public,
dressing freely in public,
giving hugs to members of the opposite sex in public,
breaking down gender segregation walls
in their universities, and so on.
So if you're wondering why your Iranian friend is
sharing this stuff like crazy,
it’s because in the Islamic Republic of Iran,
these are brave, revolutionary acts.
And they're being led by brave, revolutionary women
who are risking it all, including their lives,
to be free.