TEHRAN – President Ebrahim Raisi said on Saturday that his administration will not allow insubordination by some individuals over hijab turn into a national security matter.
At a meeting with university student activists, President Raisi said his administration is seeking to resolve the issue over hijab with a “cultural” approach, “because the enemy, through planning, intends to turn that into a matter of security and the administration, through planning of its own, will definitely not allow what the enemies want to materialize.”
He answered more questions about his administration’s policies, including on the relationship with universities, his campaign promises of building four million housing units each year, and other economic matters, defending his record.
Iran was hit by violent riots over the death a 22-year-old woman, who collapsed at a police station where he had been called for not wearing her hijab properly.
Answering a question about the blocking of access to certain social media sites and messaging applications, he said the administration would allow any platform “that would be willing to be held accountable” by opening offices inside Iran to operate.

People who encourage women to remove the hijab will be prosecuted in criminal courts and will have no right of appeal against any conviction, Iran’s deputy attorney general was quoted as saying.
Iranian police on Saturday installed cameras in public places to identify and penalize unveiled women, Iranian media reported. Police announced the plan last week.
“The crime of promoting unveiling will be dealt with in the criminal court whose decisions are final and unappealable,” the Mehr News quoted deputy attorney general Ali Jamadi as saying.
“The punishment for the crime of promoting and encouraging others to remove the hijab is much heavier than the crime of removing the hijab itself, because it is one of the clear examples of encouraging corruption,” he added.