An Iranian woman who peacefully protested the obligatory hijab rule by removing her head scarf in public in Tehran in December says she has been sentenced to two years in prison in addition to an 18-year suspended prison term. Shapark Shajarizadeh posted on her personal website that she had been jailed for “opposing the compulsory hijab” and “waving a white flag of peace in the street.”

In Iran, women showing their hair in public face penalties ranging from a $26 fine to being locked up. Her protest was part of a wider movement that resulted in the arrest of 35 people in Iran between December 2017 and February 2018, according to Amnesty International (media reports place the number arrested at 29). Cops in Iran collared 29 women in February for removing their headscarves as part of a campaign known as “White Wednesdays.”

Nasrin Sotoudeh, a prominent human rights lawyer who represented Shajarizadeh and other women, was arrested last month. Shapark Shajarizadeh, 42, was arrested in February after she was filmed standing on a traffic island in the Iranian capital Tehran, while waving her headscarf around on the end of a stick.
Shaparak Shajarizadeh, one of the Iranian women in the Girls of Enghelab Street protest against the hijab rule, says that she has left Iran after being sentenced to two years in prison and an 18-year suspended prison term.