Cairo CNN —
Iranian authorities have banned a film festival after a promotional poster featured an actress not wearing a hijab, a head covering worn by many Muslim women, the country’s state-owned media outlet IRNA reported on Saturday.
The 13th edition of the Iranian Short Film Association (ISFA) festival was banned after Iran’s Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance deemed the poster inappropriate, according to IRNA.
“The Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance has personally ordered the 13th edition of the ISFA film festival to be banned after the poster used a photo of a woman without a hijab in violation of the law,” ministry spokesman Mohammad Mehdi Samoui said in a statement, according to IRNA.
In mass protests across Iran last year, women burned hijabs and cut their hair to protest the mandatory dress code.
The protests erupted after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who died after being taken into custody by Iran’s morality police for failing to wear the hijab in accordance with government-imposed standards.
The image that led to the festival’s ban is a promotional poster for the 1982 film The Death of Yazdgerd starring Susan Taslimi, reports AFP.
A video circulating on pro-government channels is said to show a ceremony where the placard was unveiled by a woman not wearing a hijab. It is unclear when and where the ceremony took place.
“This image refers to a scene … in a film that was filmed before hijab was compulsory. Given the current sensitivity surrounding the removal of the hijab, posting the poster is considered a violation of societal interests,” Samoui told IRNA.
Iranian women face arrest for not covering their hair.
On July 16, state media reported that the country’s vice squad would resume patrols to force women to comply with strict Islamic dress codes after witnesses said they had all but disappeared from Tehran’s streets during the protests.
Saeid Montazeralmahdi, spokesman for Iran’s Faraja Law Enforcement Agency, said police will resume vehicle and foot patrols across the country from July 16, state-run Fars News Agency reported.
Officials will first warn women who don’t comply, while those who “insist on breaking the norms” face legal action, he said.
In April, two women were arrested after a man threw yogurt at them for not wearing a hijab. This emerges from a video and a report released by Mizan News Agency, the state-run media for Iran’s judiciary.
Video of the incident, which took place at a shop in the northeastern city of Shandiz, shows a man approaching one of the unveiled women, speaking to her before grabbing a mug of yogurt and throwing it over the two women’s heads.