New Wave of Blocking Instagram Influencers for Wearing Hijab

A new wave of blocking Instagram influencers due to hijab

In the past few days, there has been an intensified crackdown on popular female figures on Instagram regarding hijab, and dozens of pages have been blocked by the Iranian Public Security Police with the same post from Faraja Police.

Pardis Fatemi, a model and blogger with 640,000 followers, Sogol Rahbar, a fitness coach with 300,000 followers, Naghmeh Jafari, a hairdresser with over a million followers, Negar Farahmand, a model and blogger with 355,000 followers, Kimia Hosseini, a model and blogger with over 630,000 followers, and Ghazal Mahani, a runner with over 110,000 followers, are among the faces whose Instagram pages have been blocked and their activities have been halted by Faraja Police in the past week.

Another group of faces on Instagram, who have hundreds of thousands to millions of followers, have been inaccessible. It is unclear whether this group has voluntarily deactivated their Instagram accounts due to pressure or fear of police intervention, or if this action has been taken by the Iranian police. Like many other countries, in Iran, users with a large number of followers use Instagram for advertising and income generation.

Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, the head of Iran’s judiciary, said yesterday, November 8th, that prosecutors and judicial authorities should demand the enforcement of the law in addressing social abnormalities from the government and the Ministry of Interior. They should not wait for the approval of the bill related to chastity and hijab.

Earlier, on November 3rd, the commander of the police in Mazandaran province announced the implementation of a police operation against promoters of improper hijab on social media. He stated that 302 individuals who were identified as promoters of improper hijab have been accused of promoting and disseminating obscenities through indecent modeling and explicit live broadcasts, which carries heavy penalties under Islamic penal law.

A few days ago, in Bandar Abbas, an Instagram page related to beauty was shut down simultaneously with the closure of 10 women’s hair salons due to promoting indecent advertising on social media that featured provocative images and disturbed public minds.