Videos: Iranians begin ‘knock the turbans off clerics’ game as part of anti-hijab protests

Videos have now emerged on social media that show students knocking turbans off of clerics in a protests that started with the hijab mandate and the terror of moral police in Iran, has now escalated to anti-government protests.

Several videos show, school children throw off the turbans from the heads of clerics. It is to be noted that turbans are a religious marker for Islamic men, especially clerics.

See videos here

“These days I’ve been receiving many videos from inside Iran where schoolgirls & boys knock turbans off clerics as part of anti regime protests. Removing the turbans of clerics has turned into an act of protest after regime killed hundreds of innocent protesters.” wrote one netizen.

“NEW “GAME” in vogue among young people in #Iran : knocking down the turbans of mullahs crossed in the middle of the street, here in Hamedan (west of the country), in protest against the Islamic Republic, led by an ayatollah” wrote another.

They added,” GAME. A growing number of young people in #Iran are having fun tearing down the mullahs’ turbans in protest, like here, in the holy city of Mashhad, in the northeast of the country.”

Radical students cemented Iran’s Islamic Revolution in 1979 by storming the embassy soon after the fall of the U.S.-backed Shah, and 52 Americans were held hostage there for 444 days.

The two countries have been enemies ever since and, as Iranian authorities on Friday urged security forces to swiftly stamp out the anti-government protests, which have spread to all layers of society, new bilateral tensions surfaced.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi criticised Joe Biden, a day after the U.S. president vowed to “free Iran”.

Biden said on Thursday that the demonstrators would soon succeed in freeing themselves.

“Don’t worry, we’re gonna free Iran. They’re gonna free themselves pretty soon,” Biden said during a campaign speech in California. He did not expand on his remarks.

On 16 September 2022, a 22-year-old Iranian woman named Mahsa Amini, also known as Jina Amini, died in a hospital in Tehran, Iran, under suspicious circumstances. The Guidance Patrol, the religious morality police of Iran’s government, arrested Amini for not wearing the hijab in accordance with government standards.

On 17 September, hours after Amini died, demonstrators gathered outside Kasra Hospital in Tehran, where Amini had been treated. Human rights groups reported that security forces deployed pepper spray against protesters and that several were arrested. Then a series of protests broke out over Amini’s death, including in Saqqez, her hometown. Some shouted “death to the dictator”, and Kurdish feminist slogans such as “woman, life, freedom”