Iranian woman posts picture of herself without headscarf after prison release
An Iranian woman who was jailed after posing without a hijab has shared another picture of herself without a headscarf immediately after being released from prison.
Nazila Maroufian, a 23-year-old journalist, was initially imprisoned last year for reporting on the nationwide protests that engulfed Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini in police custody.
She was released on bail in January but was then rearrested in July as authorities cracked down on dissent ahead of next month’s anniversary of Amini’s death.
Amini was detained for allegedly violating the mandatory hijab rule, which applies to all women and girls over the age of nine.
Ms Maroufian walked out of prison for a second time following a month behind bars on Sunday.
She almost immediately posted a picture of herself on social media without a headscarf and the slogan “Don’t accept slavery, you deserve the best!”.
Ms Maroufian was promptly detained again afterwards.
After her third release on Wednesday – following a stint in the Qarchak womens’ prison – she shared an almost identical photo: unveiled, clutching flowers, and proudly holding her hand in a “V for victory” pose in the air.
“Do you regret the photo you posted during your freedom? Do you admit that you were wrong?” she captioned the accompanying social media post. “No; I have not done anything wrong,” the post continued.
Last October, Ms Maroufian published an interview on the Mostaghel Online news site with Amjad Amini, the father of 22-year-old Mahsa.
In the interview, Mr Amini accused the Iranian authorities of lying about his daughter’s death, which they claimed, at first, was due to a pre-existing condition and not as a result of beatings from police.
Ms Maroufian, a Tehran-based journalist from Amini’s hometown of Saqez in Kurdistan province, was arrested the following month.
In January, she said she had been sentenced to two years in jail, suspended for five years, and had received a fine and a travel ban on charges of propaganda against the system and spreading fake news.
Her latest release came as increasing numbers of women across Iran defy the country’s strict dress laws, forcing authorities to redeploy the widely-feared morality police and resort to increasingly draconian measures in a bid to maintain the headscarf rule.
