My Stealthy Freedom: Iranian Women's Photos Against Forced Hijab

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Iranian Women Share Photos With Hair Uncovered to Protest Hijab Laws

In May 2014 the Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad opened a Facebook page called My Stealthy Freedom and invited women in Iran to send her pictures of themselves outdoors without the compulsory headscarf. Within days it had more than 100,000 likes, and by early 2015 it had roughly three quarters of a million followers. The photos were simple: a woman on a beach, a mother and daughter in a doorway, a student with her hair blowing in the wind. In a country where uncovering in public can bring a fine or arrest, each one was a small act of protest.

The campaign never asked women to stop wearing the hijab. Its point was choice. Alinejad summed it up in one line that became the page's motto: “My mother wants to wear a scarf. I don't want to wear a scarf. Iran should be for both of us.”

Why the headscarf is compulsory in Iran

Iran's dress rules have swung between extremes. In 1936 Reza Shah ordered women to unveil, and police pulled scarves off women in the street. After the 1979 revolution the pendulum swung the other way: within a few years of the Islamic Republic's founding, covering the hair and wearing loose clothing in public became mandatory for every woman and girl past puberty, regardless of her religion.

Enforcement has been handled by the morality police, officially the Guidance Patrol, and by other agencies. Figures attributed to Iranian police and widely reported at the time put the number of women warned, fined or detained over “improper” dress at around 3.6 million in a single year shortly before the campaign began. Those numbers cannot be independently checked, but they give a sense of how routine the stops were.

There are different types of Islamic veils, some cover far more surface area than others. The Hijab is among the least conservative but still covers a woman’s entire hair and neck and is mandatory for women in Iran

This chart compares common forms of Islamic covering, from the light shayla and the hijab to the chador, niqab and full burka. The hijab, a scarf that covers the hair and neck, is the minimum required by Iranian law, though many women wear the black chador by choice or for work. In practice, many urban women push the rules with loose, colourful scarves pushed back from the hairline.

How My Stealthy Freedom began

Alinejad was born in 1976 in a village near Babol in northern Iran and began her career as a parliamentary reporter in Tehran in the early 2000s. Her outspoken reporting made her unwelcome with the authorities, and after leaving Iran around 2009 she lived first in London and then, from 2014, in New York, where she has hosted a programme for Voice of America's Persian service.

Iranian Women Share Photos With Hair Uncovered to Protest Hijab Laws

Alinejad photographed in a park abroad, hair loose. It was a picture like this, posted without comment, that started the whole project: readers in Iran wrote back asking why she could enjoy what they could not, and some began sending their own photos.

It all started when Masih Alinejad posted photos of herself with and without a Hijab veil.

A laptop screen shows two portraits of Alinejad side by side, one wearing a headscarf and one without. Posting both versions of herself made the campaign's argument visually: the same woman, the same face, and only one of the pictures legal in her home country.

100 Years Ago, People Were Eating Things That Most of Us Will Never Taste. So What Happened - Alinejad says, “As a kid, my brother was a symbol of freedom that I didn’t have. How he was free to run in a green lovely farm.”

A family photo from Alinejad's childhood in Mazandaran province. In interviews and in her 2018 memoir The Wind in My Hair, she recalls envying her brother, who could run through the fields with nothing on his head while she had to stay covered. That memory of the wind on her brother's hair gave the campaign much of its imagery.

The photos women sent in

Most submissions came from inside Iran and were taken in places where women felt safe enough to slip off their scarves for a moment: empty beaches on the Caspian, mountain roads, gardens, car windows. Each was posted with a short message from the sender, often about wind, sunlight and the simple pleasure of feeling air on their hair.

Now she’s asking other women to step out and protest strict Hijab laws by sharing photos of their hair flowing free without a veil. As a result, thousands of beautiful Iranian women have joined the movement.

A woman lets her long hair fly in a strong wind beside a lake, with a snow-capped volcanic peak behind her that resembles Mount Damavand, Iran's highest mountain. Pictures like this, joyful rather than angry, became the campaign's signature, because they were hard to portray as an attack on anyone.

“Some of the pictures come from young girls saying that they just want to feel the wind in their hair. It’s a simple demand.”

Not every contributor wanted to remove her scarf. This woman, wearing a hijab, holds up a laptop with a message in Persian and English saying that she believes in the hijab but opposes making it obligatory. Supporters who covered by choice were an important part of the page, underlining that the debate was about the law, not the garment.

“Two women with head scarves, and two women without head scarves. Look at how they are free!”

A park scene with women walking, some covered and some not. The sender's message celebrated the sight of women with different choices sharing the same space, which is still unusual on the streets of Iran.

“My mother wants to wear a scarf. I don’t want to wear a scarf. Iran should be for both of us.”

A mother in a black chador stands beside her daughter, who has left her hair uncovered. It is the page's motto in a single image: two generations, two choices, one family.

Here Are Some Of The Awesome Submissions Received From Women All Around The World

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. A woman riding a white horse along the shore, arm raised and hair uncovered. Her message criticised beliefs forced on people against their will, a theme that ran through many submissions.

“It’s sad that my pretty black hair’s going grey and it hasn’t seen the wind, sun or rain yet.”

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. Holding a red scarf up to the wind, this contributor wrote that her black hair was turning grey without ever having felt the wind, sun or rain in public. Many older women wrote in with the same sense of a lifetime of small freedoms missed.

“It’s an amazing feeling when wind tangles your hair under the blue sky.”

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. Arms outstretched against a bright blue sky, a scarf trailing from one hand. The caption described how wonderful it feels when the wind tangles your hair under an open sky.

“Enjoying the wind passing through our hair. Something that’s so obviously a man’s right is considered illegal offensive act for me and my sister.”

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. Three young people on a rocky hilltop, scarves held up like flags. The sender pointed out that something every man in Iran takes for granted, feeling the breeze in his hair, was treated as an offence for her and her sister.

“Hoping for the ultimate freedom of Iranian women.”

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. A woman holds a bright green scarf above her head, her face turned to the sun. She dedicated the picture to the hope that Iranian women will one day be fully free to choose.

“Being yourself gives such wonderful pleasure”

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. Two friends lean out of a car's sunroof on a mountain road, arms raised. Their message was about the pleasure of simply being yourself, and car journeys out of town were among the most common settings for these photos.

“Let It Go”

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. Lying on the grass with her hair spread out and decorated with small yellow flowers, this contributor used the title of a popular Disney song, “Let It Go”, as her caption.

“My Stealthy Freedom”

Photo: My Stealthy Freedom. A woman in a field raises her scarf over her head in a black-and-white portrait that became one of the campaign's best-known images and was used as its banner.

Alinejad explains the campaign in her own words in this video:

What happened next: White Wednesdays and Woman, Life, Freedom

My Stealthy Freedom grew into a series of campaigns. In 2015 Alinejad received the women's rights award of the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy. In May 2017 she launched White Wednesdays, asking women to wear white scarves or remove their headscarves on Wednesdays as a visible sign of protest. Iranian state media repeatedly attacked her, at one point broadcasting a false story about her.

The protest became far larger in September 2022. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, was detained in Tehran by the morality police for allegedly breaking the hijab rules and died in custody on 16 September. Protests under the slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” spread across the country and lasted into early 2023. A UN fact-finding mission corroborated that at least 550 protesters were killed, including 68 children.

The cost for Alinejad

Alinejad, who became a US citizen in 2019, has been the target of plots that US prosecutors have linked to Iran. In 2021 the US Justice Department charged Iranian intelligence officials over a plan to kidnap her from New York. In July 2022 a man carrying a loaded rifle was arrested near her Brooklyn home, and in March 2025 two men were convicted in Manhattan federal court over a murder-for-hire plot against her; they were sentenced to 25 years in prison that October. Iran has denied involvement.

Where the hijab law stands now

The headscarf is still compulsory under Iranian law. In 2023 parliament passed a harsher hijab and chastity bill with heavier penalties, but President Masoud Pezeshkian said he could not enforce it because most people rejected it, and the UN special rapporteur on Iran describes it as suspended. Enforcement has shifted rather than disappeared: authorities close cafés, restaurants and shops where staff or customers are uncovered, and women are still arrested in some cities. At the same time, many women in Tehran and other cities now go out with their hair uncovered in daily life, something that was rare when these photos were first posted.

Common misunderstandings

  • “The campaign is against the hijab.” It is against forcing it. Many supporters, like the woman with the laptop above, wear a headscarf themselves.
  • “Only women abroad took part.” The great majority of photos were sent from inside Iran, often at real personal risk; senders usually asked that their names not be shown.
  • “Compulsory veiling is ancient Iranian tradition.” Iran's rules were imposed by the state in the 20th century, first as forced unveiling in 1936 and then as forced veiling after 1979.

Sources: Wikipedia: My Stealthy Freedom; Wikipedia: Masih Alinejad; Al Jazeera, 16 September 2026: Four years on, Iranians reflect on Woman, Life, Freedom. Photos: submissions to My Stealthy Freedom and Masih Alinejad.

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