As Iran’s military says it is preparing to suppress a surge of anti-government rallies, a new trend targeted squarely at exposing and demeaning the Islamic republic’s governing elite has developed in the country. In recent weeks, videos of teenage protestors racing past and knocking the turbans off the heads of unaware Islamic clergy in public have dominated the internet.
The “turban tossing” trend has grown as public demonstrations continue. Mahsa Amini, 22, died on September 16 after being imprisoned by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country’s severe dress code for women, which mandates them to cover their hair in public. Her death provoked the most major challenge to Iran’s conservative Islamic theocracy in history.
As Iran’s protests continue, there is a trend of clerics “throwing their turbans”
Iranians are uploading films of themselves removing or stealing a cleric’s turban and (often) fleeing the scene.
(Song is Toomaj Salehi’s “Rathole”)
#MahsaAmini image: http://twitter.com/hCN3fnZGKH
November 7, 2022 — Holly Dagres (@hdagres)
Videos of young Iranians going up behind clergy on the street and knocking their turbans off their heads have filled social media. The practice has become so popular that many clergy are seen wearing covers over their turbans to hold them in place, but recordings show that even turbans that are well anchored can be ripped off by the often-masked demonstrators.
Holly Dagres, a senior scholar and Iran specialist at the Atlantic Council, presented a video compilation of over a dozen clips, put to the music of a currently imprisoned popular Iranian dissident rapper.
In some instances, religious figures can be observed being confronted by small crowds and even being struck or slapped. While the majority of turban toppling involves quick sneak attacks that leave the clerics grappling for their headgear, in other instances, the religious figures are seen being confronted by small crowds and even being struck.
A guy using the identity “Sir Antonio Su Padre” announced sarcastically on Twitter on Tuesday the formation of the “Iran Turban Throwing Federation,” a purportedly regulatory and rating body for turban-flipping events.
A Twitter account created by the “Federation” released dozens of videos of turbans flying off heads and awarded “contestants” points based on their dexterity, tossing techniques, and the distances traveled by the headwear.
The account gained more than 50,000 followers in a matter of hours before Twitter suspended it.
Iran’s army is prepared to “end” protestors.
In the past two months, Iranians have risked arrest to speak out against the regime in a variety of ways, including viral protest songs, graffiti, and other covert tactics. However, the street rallies are the most visceral embodiment of young Iranians’ anger. The widespread demonstrations have entered their eighth week and show no signs of abating despite the authorities’ brutal response and increasing threats.
Iran’s widespread antigovernment demonstrations may provoke additional repression. 04:14
The commander of the Iranian Army’s ground forces cautioned Thursday that the only reason “riots” were still occurring was because the country’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, had not yet given the order to crush them.
Brigadier General Kioumars Heydari was quoted by Iran’s Mehr news agency as saying, “We will not permit the hallowed blood of victims to be trampled upon.” “We will prevent them from taking to the streets”
If Khamenei provides “the command to deal with them,” he declared, “they will have no place in our country.”
Flipping the incorrect turbans?
However, not all Iranians support the new protest movement, and those who oppose it are by no means regime supporters.
Some claim that embarrassing the mullahs in public puts on religious authorities the same sense of vulnerability that women have had in Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979 brought the current administration to power. Others highlight that not all Iranian Islamic clerics represent or support the regime.
Images from a video released to Twitter in early November 2022 depict a guy knocking the turban off the head of an Islamic cleric, as part of a trend of demonstrators “turban throwing” to demonstrate their support for the anti-government demonstrations sweeping Iran. Twitter
“This habit, known as ‘turban throwing,’ which has become a source of delight for some opponents, primarily affects academics who do not hold government jobs. They may even be policy critics or victims “On his blog, Ahmad Zaidabadi, an Iranian scholar and member of the Iranian reform movement, wrote. “Mullahs with high positions in the regime do not typically walk in public, and if they do, they are protected.”
However, despite the fact that turbans are merely indicators of religious study in Iran, and not of status or political power, they are often regarded as symbols of the current dictatorship.
They claim that during decades of oppression, the clerics were either rulers, involved with the government, or remained silent.