Iran women bike against female cycling fatwa
06.10.16
(Gender-based discrimination / Tradition, Culture, Religion)
A ruling by Iran’s top religious leader banning women from cycling has led to angry social media users posting pictures of themselves riding their bikes in protest of the fatwa.
Iran’s religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has angered women across the country by issuing an edict banning them from riding bicycles.
“Riding [bicycles] often attracts the attention of men and exposes society to corruption, and thus contravenes women’s chastity, and it must be abandoned,” Khamenei said on September 10, according to Iranian state media.
Female cycling enthusiasts regularly face criticism and some have even been attacked or arrested in the past.
Recently, a series of campaigns encouraging people to ride their bikes in order to lower air pollution has caught on in numerous Iranian cities, leading many, both men and women, to cycle more often.
Read the entire article at Deutsche Welle.
