The National Library of Iran has suspended the membership of several women for declining to wear appropriate hijab, library members said Monday, amid a brutal and ongoing crackdown by the Islamic Republic on nationwide protests demanding a regime change.
Several National Library members protested the suspensions and, in their statement, called it an escalation of "gender apartheid" by the Islamic Republic.
The members said the authorities’ goal was to "eliminate women" from Iranian society.
"The National Library, which logically should be a cultural institution, is now the vanguard of the oppressive army, and is removing researchers and students from the public," the statement reads.
Young Iranian women have been at the forefront of the protest movement sparked by the death last September of Jina Mahsa Amini. The 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman had been arrested for allegedly wearing a hijab improperly and later died in the custody of Iran’s “morality police”.
