DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (TSWT) — Iranian state media reported on Friday that authorities have arrested five people accused of staging a skateboarding event where dozens of teenagers mingled freely and girls did not wear a headscarf.
A video of ‘Go Skateboarding Day’ held on a boulevard in the southern city of Shiraz has gone viral on social media, angering conservative religious authorities in a country where wearing the Muslim hijab is compulsory for all women and teenage girls .
The state television report said provincial justice was looking into the event, while state news agency IRNA reported that a rally to oppose Western-style gatherings of teenagers would take place after Friday prayer in Shiraz.
Iran is a theocracy where the clerics control nearly every lever of power and seek to dominate every aspect of life. They have long viewed these activities as part of a “soft war” waged by the West against the Islamic Republic.
Iranian law prohibits women from appearing in public without covering their hair with a hijab – a strict dress code imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
