An Iranian monarchist who filmed herself pulling the headscarves off Iranians in London fled to Israel after UK police announced they were investigating her.

The woman allegedly responsible is an Iranian pro-Israel activist called Bahar Mahroo, who later closed her Instagram and TikTok accounts and claimed she found the videos online. However, a reserve image search found no sources for the video, other than her Twitter account.

  • Resol van Lemmy@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    I consider an example of “true freedom” as the following:

    Don’t ban the hijab, AND don’t force people to wear the hijab. Just let the person decide what they wanna wear, and leave them alone if it makes you uncomfortable. Simple.

    • Squizzy@lemmy.world
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      2 days ago

      But that is the reason behind theboutright bans, the argument that some people do not get to choose to wear them or not.

      • nandeEbisu@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        How can you enforce any clothing is worn voluntarily? A partner could coerce someone to dress as modestly / revealingly as they want and you would need to rely on them to say they are being coerced.

        • Maalus@lemmy.world
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          2 days ago

          Exactly so you ban the clothing that was traditionally used to coerce someone. There is a difference between colored socks and a hijab

          • tlou3please@lemmy.world
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            2 days ago

            Where’s the line? Because controlling men force women to cover up all the time with all sorts of pieces of clothing.

            • Maalus@lemmy.world
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              2 days ago

              The line is drawn with systemic issues with “culture”. If banning ultimately better for society, then ban it.

      • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Well given that there is some relation to Iran, as a government it would help to not force people to wear it anymore.

        In terms of European societies it’s a common allegation that women would be forced to wear it but in countries like France, Germany, UK, etc. it’s usually non-Muslim people speaking about this issue but no one actually speaks to Muslim women and asks them what they want.

        So it’s not like there’s actual data on this and I doubt that it’s possible to collect reliable data on this issue. IMO a first step would be to work together with Muslim women instead of patronizing them.

  • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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    3 days ago

    What an absurd story. Another nutjob the Palestinians now have to deal with. Will never understand right winger‘s obsession with the hijab.

    Like I guess we all agree that it’s terrible to force women to wear something they don’t wanna wear. First of all, how do her actions fix the problem in Iran? This is just anti-Muslim racism.

    Then, in the west where stuff like this happens there’s this constant allegation that women would be forced to wear it, which is in most cases wrong and just another angle on anti-Muslim racism. So these anti-hijab people want to then ban hijabs in order to „free“ the women.

    It makes no sense to tell women what to wear and what not in order to free them from people allegedly telling them what to wear and what not. No one could ever come up with a coherent explanation when I raised this concern, always just a lot of mental gymnastics. I will never understand why people just don’t let other people be.

    Apart from that, being against the Iranian regime is a reasonable take, but wanting back a monarchy instead? Wtf

    • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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      3 days ago

      The old Iranian monarchy were basically Western puppets. Iran tried to break loose in the 1950s. So in 1953 America and Britain overthrew the Iranian government when it tried to claim ownership over its own oil. They also strengthened the power of the Iranian monarchy which was loyal to them.

      The Iranian monarchy were some of the first to recognize israel and do anything else the West asked them to. Not much of a surprise israelis loved them.

    • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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      3 days ago

      This is just anti-Muslim racism.

      There is no reason to believe that this woman is not herself a Muslim. Not all Muslims are in favor of head scarves. Iran was a Muslim country while the Shah ruled it too despite head scarves not being required in Tehran at the time. Is she a horrible person? Did she do something unconscionable? Absolutely. But I think calling her a racist for what she did when she could be Muslim herself is going a bit too far.

      • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Yeah I mean she seems to be frequently on pro-Israel protests, is a right wing supporter and an Iranian monarchist. Exiled Iranians are usually hardcore atheists and combining this with her political views and her ripping off hijabs off women’s heads I think this paints a pretty clear picture.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          3 days ago

          Exiled Iranians are usually hardcore atheists

          I’m honestly asking this- are they? I’ve never heard this before. Where did you get that information from?

          Edit: I should add that I was fairly active in the atheist community in Los Angeles, which does have a large Iranian/Persian population, and I don’t remember them being prominent members of the community, but it’s been a long time now, so I might just be forgetting.

          • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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            3 days ago

            I grew up in Europe in a place with a lot of exiled Iranians and have a lot of colleagues/ university buddies from there. Have a friend still living in Iran as well. This is of course kind of anecdotal but I think in general it wouldn’t be a controversial take in European countries.

            I think it’s also kind of implied because they were the losers of the revolution and more conservative/religious people just tried to keep their heads down. The Iranian regime sucks even by middle eastern standards but if you’re not opposing them you can kind of get by.

            I’m not at all familiar with the American-Iranian community so it may be very different over there.

            The same applies btw to the new wave of Turkish immigrants. Again very anecdotal but alone in my last workplace I had like 20-30 Turkish colleagues who came to the EU from Istanbul recently and I didn’t know a single of them who was religious. Not that it matters in this post but what I’m trying to say is that societies and migration are more diverse than how it’s portrayed in the media.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              3 days ago

              It’s definitely far more diverse. I’m sure there are very religious people who left Iran and also atheists. There is also a small but significant Armenian Christian community in Los Angeles that emigrated from Iran. Wikipedia tells me there are still Armenian Christians in Iran, which surprises me.

              • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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                3 days ago

                Ah you’re quick, edited something in still sorry about that.

                Yeah I was also surprised, there’s also still Arab and Kurdish speaking people and a huge percentage of people actually are Azerbaijani not Persian.

                It’s a cool country and I’d love to visit some day, just seems more difficult every year.

      • Linkerbaan@lemmy.worldOP
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        3 days ago

        Rasicm does appear to be her motivation

        Mahroo’s Twitter account also reveals support for far-right politicians across Europe including well known racists like Tommy Robinson.

      • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        There is no reason to believe that this woman is not herself a Muslim.

        What is Muslim to you? This is a prime example for how western people see Islam as a race, and therefore people from Iran are automatically classified as muslim.

        There’s a very good reason to believe that this woman is not a muslim, and that’s the whole purpose of the article: she’s harassing Muslim women for the sole reason that they wear a piece of clothing showing that they’re Muslim. That you are unable to recognize this as what it clearly is, anti Muslim bigotry, is revealing your own bias against Muslims.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          2 days ago

          I was going to write a substantive response to this, but since you’ve already decided that I think Islam is a race when I told someone else below that they were mistaking Iranians for Arabs just shows you don’t really care and want to berate someone.

          • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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            2 days ago

            Do you have any other reason than the woman being Iranian for your remark that there’s no reason to believe she’s not a muslim? You don’t, so my comment stands. You decided that she being Iranian is a good reason to assume she’s Muslim, despite the article saying she was attacking Muslim women. We both know why, so stop clutching your pearls and have look at your own assumptions.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              2 days ago

              Sorry, I’m not going to have a legitimate conversation with someone who called me a racist when I said nothing racist.

              Also, we have a civility rule here and you have broken it twice now. Please do not continue.

              • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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                2 days ago

                You can hide behind whatever rule you’d like. I’ve been more civil in my replies than your remarks call for. And it’s pretty clear in my unedited comments for everyone to see. Knock yourself out with whatever rule you need to hide behind, in order to avoid having an honest look at your own beliefs and biases.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  2 days ago

                  As I suggested at the beginning, what you are looking for is not a discussion, it’s a person to berate. All you do is keep proving it.

                  However, I will indulge you:

                  I could point you to multiple different posts I have made where I have shown that it is clear that multiple ethnicities of people in different parts of the world are Muslims and they practice Islam in different ways.

                  Those posts were in response to two misogynists claiming that Muslim women who did not wear headscarves were either sinners or not Muslims.

                  One of them also said Iranians are Arabs.

                  And yet rather than attack them for their misogyny and one of them for saying something that really is racist, you attack me for daring to suggest that maybe an Iranian woman is a Muslim because we don’t know what she claims her religion is right now.

                  Just amazing.

                  I’d stick around and wait for your criticisms of their posts, but you’ve latched on to hating me and once you’re on that hate teat, I know how hard it is to let go.

    • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      Another nutjob the Palestinians now have to deal with.

      What’s the relevance of this?

      • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Did you like read the article? It’s even in the summary of the original post. She filmed herself ripping off hijabs of women’s heads and then the police was investigating it and then she fucked off to Tel Aviv. I don’t get this thing where people comment without reading the OP, let alone the actual article.

        • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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          3 days ago

          Yes, I did; what is she planning to do to Palestinians if she’s going to Israel?

          I don’t get this thing where someone makes a comment, you respond that you don’t think they read it, then asks you a question about the relevance and you ignore it and moan instead. But hey, as you were.

          • faltryka@lemmy.world
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            3 days ago

            I think the implication is that an anti Muslim radical going to Israel is likely to support the current Israeli genocide of the Palestinian people.

            • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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              3 days ago

              I mean yeah, maybe? Not sure how though, seems very assumptive based on a place she just flew to. Not sure how she will affect anything regarding the Palestinians.

              • faltryka@lemmy.world
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                3 days ago

                Are you trying to say that you think a person who is radicalized against muslims is going to move to a country that is actively genociding a population of them and not support it?

                • ABCDE@lemmy.world
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                  2 days ago

                  You’re assuming she has been radicalised. And you’re assuming what she’s going to do there. Her overall effect will be nigh-on zero, I imagine.