Iran forces women defying hijab laws into psychiatric treatment

Authorities in Iran are trying to enforce laws obligating women to cover their hair by sending them into psychological treatment.

While healthcare organisations warn the country’s judiciary is hijacking psychiatric medicine for its own purposes, others cite the move as being a sign of the government’s inability to enforce hijab laws.

At the start of July, a Tehran court sentenced a woman to two months in prison and six months of psychological treatment for “a contagious psychological disorder that leads to sexual promiscuity” because she didn’t wear a hijab.

In a symbolic act of defiance, Iranian actress Afsaneh Bayegan has repeatedly posted photos of her unveiled hair on Instagram, and recently attended a public ceremony without a hijab.

The move irked Iranian authorities, who have been looking for new ways to force women into covering their hair.

Bayegan, 61, was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and ordered to visit a “psychological centre” once a week to “treat her anti-family personality disorder”, the country’s Fars News Agency reported on July 19.

Many Iranian women have chosen to start showing their hair since the death of Mahsa Amini in September 2022 after being detained by Iran’s morality police for “improperly” wearing her headscarf. Iranian celebrities, athletes and actresses have followed suit in solidarity. 

“The sentence that [Bayegan] was given sets an example,” explains Azadeh Kian, an Iran specialist and professor of political science at Université Paris Cité.

Bayegan was one of Iran’s first cinema stars after the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and is a respected figure on Iranian television. 

Bayegan’s case is not an isolated one. Iranian judges recently “diagnosed” Iranian actress Azadeh Samadi with an “antisocial personality disorder” after she wore a hat instead of a hijab at a funeral. Samadi will also have to seek therapy weekly in a “psychological centre”. 

 The surge in sentences forcing women to undergo psychological treatment has alarmed the Iranian psychiatric sector.

In an open letter sent to the head of the country’s judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Mohseni Ejei, on July 23, the presidents of four mental health organisations accused authorities of “exploiting psychiatry” for other purposes.

“Diagnosing mental health disorders is the responsibility of psychiatrists, not judges,” they decried.

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