Kamal Hadianfar, traffic chief for the police’s NAJA special forces unit, has said that women will be “definitively” dealt with if they ride a motorcycle.
On Tuesday, October 19, Hadianfar told the Iranian media that only men’s names could appear on motorcycle licenses. As such, he said, no woman could legally drive one.
"This issue needs to be amended in law,” he said to would-be critics. “The traffic police cannot take any action in this regard.”
Women on motorbikes have been harassed and even arrested by police on several occasions over the past few years. In 2017, two women were arrested in Dezful and in August 2021, a woman was detained in Mashhad.
In 2016, in response to a question from Fars News Agency about the legality of the ban, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said: “Women's cycling in public and in the presence of male non-relations, often attracts the attention of men. It tends toward sedition and corruption in society, and runs contrary to women's chastity.”
Related coverage:
Iran's First All-Women Motorbike Race
The Woman Who Ignored All The Stop Signs
A Female Journalist’s Diaries of Riding a Bicycle in Tehran
Iran's Ambassador Praises Women Pilots — But They Still Cannot Ride a Bicycle
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