Iran president’s wife: Harsher sentences on women not wearing hijabs ‘out of respect for women’

Jamileh Alamolhoda, wife of the president of Iran, is fine with a law passed last week which imposes harsher sentences on women who do not wear hijabs in public. She compares the rule to “dress codes everywhere.” She justified her position during an interview with ABC’s Martha Raddatz on This Week.

Is it really, though? In Iran, women get killed for disobeying the draconian rules of the country’s leaders. It isn’t like Jamileh has the freedom to have her own opinion in her position. She’s married to the president. She’s a dead woman walking if she strayed from the leadership’s laws. She didn’t have enough courage to say what will happen to women caught in public not wearing the hijab by the morality police. She kind of gave a roundabout answer when Raddatz asked her about that.

“It is out of respect for women,” Alamolhoda said. “It is natural in any country. There may be differences of opinion and viewpoints about dress codes. It comes back to their tastes, how they choose to live their lives and their social rights.”

“You have dress codes everywhere, even here in university environments, in schools and everywhere else. And I need to tell you that hijab was a tradition, was a religiously mandated tradition, accepted widely. And now for years, it has been turned into a law. And breaking of the law, trampling upon any laws, just like in any country, comes with its own set of punishments,” she said.

The whole point of the social discontent, the demonstrations, and protests in the streets is that women and girls want the freedom to go without the hijab and the restrictions on them. The protests got underway in a big way after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She died in jail after being arrested by the morality police for not properly wearing her hijab in public. She died in custody after being beaten as she was arrested. Alamolhoda denied that Amini died because of her treatment by the morality police. The president’s wife said Amini was ill and died due to her illness. Her family denies she was ill.

Because of Amini’s death, the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protests began. More than 551 protesters have been killed, according to Iran Human Rights. That number includes 68 children and 49 women. Alamolhoda claimed Amini was loved by all Iranians, including her.

“She was loved by all of us. I’m a mother myself, and I do understand that — the value of girls and women as a whole,” Alamolhoda said.

She also claimed that she was in “constant contact” with “all of the medical personnel” involved in Amini’s case.

Right. She denied that anyone was killed due to the protests, but in defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran,.

Alamolhoda is the public face of the wives of Iranian officials. She comes from an ultra-conservative family. She and her husband have two daughters. She holds a PhD. When Raddatz pushed back on her answer about the new law, Alamolhoda said she doesn’t specialize in law. She used that as an excuse to deliver her opinion on the harsh treatment by the Iranian officials.