The Prosecutor of Isfahan announced that women’s bicycling is banned and against the law.
The website of the municipality of Isfahan posted an announcement on May 15, 2019, saying: “We are unable to hand over bicycles to the honorable ladies and youths under 15.”
The website of the municipality of Isfahan published a document according to which the Prosecutor of Isfahan had addressed the police, instructing them, “Stop women bicyclists and confiscate their identification papers. If they do not have ID papers, impound their bicycles and take them to the parking lot.”
The news on the ban was published by the website of the municipality of Isfahan, after the Friday Prayer leader of Isfahan, Abol-Hassan Mahdavi, slammed the municipality, by saying, “A group of people have made people sinful by promoting happiness. People are encouraging women to ride bicycles in Isfahan’s Charbagh.”
Charbagh is one of the top tourist sites in Isfahan.
Earlier, Ahmad Abdollahi, secretary of the Anti-Vice Staff in the Province of Isfahan, had said in September 2018, “Women’s bicycling in public without providing the necessary infrastructures is against the Sharia.”
In 2016, the state-run Fars news agency published a news on remarks by the mullahs’ supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. It wrote, “Some time ago, a government official attributed a fatwa on his social (media) page to the great leader of the Revolution. He claimed that he did not have any problem with women’s bicycling in public if the religious issues are observed. This is while according to Khamenei, women’s bicycling is only allowed if it is not in the public’s eye.” (The state-run Fars news agency – September 10, 2016)
There is no law in Iran which bans women’s bicycling, but judiciary and police deprive Iranian women from their natural right to suppress, harass and pressure them in the streets.
