Young men and women run toward clerics in the streets — including old men — knocking off their turbans and running away, giggling as if it is a game.
For more than four decades, Iran’s ruling Shia clerics have taken an uncompromising approach to social freedoms, setting a compulsory Islamic dress code for women, and restricting dancing and drinking alcohol in public.
But public opinion has turned against the conservative establishment in the wake of nationwide protests following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September while she was in police custody. Amini was detained for failing to properly observe the Islamic dress code.