In his first statement after protests to the mandatory veil on the International Women’s Day, March 8., the mullahs’ supreme leader Ali Khamenei called these protests “the propaganda of the enemies and the enormous price they have paid for negatively affecting the issue of veiling.” “They paid a great cost, put thought and propaganda into it so that as a result, a few girls would be deceived and take their scarves off and all their efforts culminated into this small, pitiful result, which is not a big deal but what made me sensitive to the subject was the issue of ‘forced hijab’ which specific people are talking about”, he said is a speech on March 8, International Women’s Day. “What happens on the streets and in public is a public matter and it obligates a system that is derived from Islam,” he added in relation to the act of women taking off their scarves in public in protest to the mandatory veil. (Khamenei state-run Website of – Mar. 8, 2018)
