The account of Roya Heshmati after her arrest: I was detained for the hijab and sang during the whipping.
In the past two days, the story of a protesting woman about the execution of a whipping sentence for openly defying the mandatory hijab and her resistance even during the whipping in the basement of the execution office has made her name frequently mentioned on social networks.
In Ms. Heshmati’s account, which has been widely shared after being reposted by Sepideh Rashno, an anti-mandatory hijab writer, she describes how the whipping sentence was carried out, the behavior of the judge, the female guard, and the execution officer, and her resistance to wearing a headscarf in the execution office branch. She wrote, ‘The judge said not to hit too hard. The man started hitting my shoulders, shoulder blades, back, buttocks, thighs, and calves. I didn’t count the number of lashes. I was whispering, ‘In the name of woman, in the name of life, the garment of slavery is torn, our dark night will become dawn, all the whips will become axes.’
Roya Heshmati, 33 years old, born in Sanandaj and residing in Tehran, as she narrated on her Facebook page, like many protesters in 2022, did not wear a headscarf in public streets and places after the death of Mahsa Zhina Amini and continued this daily struggle for months even as the security atmosphere intensified.
Ms. Heshmati, who after her arrest over the publication of a photo without a headscarf on Keshavarz Boulevard in Tehran in spring 2023, was entangled in several cases with severe charges and sentences in the Revolutionary and Criminal Courts, was eventually sentenced to one year of suspended imprisonment, a three-year travel ban for propaganda against the regime, and 74 lashes of discretionary whipping, which, as she wrote, her whipping sentence was recently executed in the District 7 Prosecutor’s Office in Tehran.
She recounts that after repeatedly refusing to wear a headscarf in the prosecutor’s office, two female officers in chadors handcuffed her from behind and forced the headscarf on her. In response to the judge, who tried to console her while emphasizing adherence to the law, she said, ‘Let the law do its job, we will continue our resistance.’
