It has been a tense exam period at Tehran’s Allameh Tabatabai University. The university ordered women to wear the maghnaeh, a hijab, covering the head, forehead, chin and chest. By one account, the students were told their exam papers would not be accepted if they didn’t comply. On June 26, angry students at the university staged a sit-in protest. When security forces arrived, they smashed one student’s head against the stone steps.
A video of the incident was posted online, and rage spread anew. Iran’s nearly 10-month-old protest movement, which began in September after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old student, died while in police custody for an alleged violation of the country’s mandatory headscarf law, is still going strong. After the university incident, students issued a statement openly challenging the authorities, complaining that the security services were out of control, the professors silenced and the students treated as prisoners on their own campus. The students declared, defiantly, “No one is going to obey you.”