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My Stealthy Freedom is an online movement that was commenced by a London-based journalist Masih Alinejad. This movement started from a Facebook page My Stealthy Freedom where women from Iran post their photos without scarfs, as Iranian women have to cover their hair in public according to local dress code. This rule was restored after the Iranian revolution in 1979.

The campaign's Facebook page has received 500,000 likes in less than one month.

Alinejad's view

Alinejad said she is not leading a battle against the headscarf. She affirmed that she wants to support the right for individual women to be able to choose whether they want Hijab.

"It's a place where male and female Iranians with different opinions can meet and talk about how they feel, think and what they do in private. They don't have to be afraid of censorship, like in the Iranian public sphere. It makes them brave to see that they are not alone with their thoughts and actions", she described her page.

Iranian reaction

As a response to Alinejad's campaign, Iranians set up various rival Facebook pages, such as Real Freedom of Iranian Women and Men's Stealthy Freedoms. The first one advocates scarfs on religious and traditional basis, and the other one pokes fun of both with pictures of Iranian men wearing sheets and scarves.

Vahid Yaminpour, an Iranian commentator and TV personality, shared a critical message in his Google Plus. “Masih Alinejad is a whore, and not a heretic as some people claim her to be,” Yaminpour wrote also on his Facebook page. “We shouldn’t elevate her to the level of a heretic. She’s just trying to compensate her psychological (and probably financial) needs by recruiting young women and sharing her notoriety with younger women who are still not prostitutes.”

A conservative website Raja news called the movement as an obvious insulation against Islam and Marja'. The author concluded that because of these kinds of contents, Facebook must remain banned. Another website, Nedaye Enghelab (Call of the Revolution), published a cartoon which depicted two pigs wearing flags of United States and Great Britain. The cartoon was titled "Members of Stealthy Freedom Campaign".

Alleged rape claim

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Iranian state broadcaster (IRIB) reported that Alinejad, who left Iran after the 2009 Presidential election, was assaulted, stripped naked, and gang-raped in London in the presence of her son. The claim was denied by Alinejad

References

1. Iranian Women Discard Their Hijabs On Masih Alinejad's 'My Stealthy Freedom' Facebook Page Huffington Post
2. Iranian women post pictures of themselves without hijabs on Facebook The Guardian
3. Women shed hijabs for 'Stealthy Freedoms' Facebook page Washington Post
4. Get it off, put it on: A culture war over the wearing of the veil may be hotting up, economist.com.
5. ‘Stealthy Freedoms of Iranian Women’ Campaign Gains Steam Interview with ABC News
6. No hijab: an Iranian journalist offers women a stealthy freedom on Facebook Deutsche Welle
7. "Iranian women who posted photos without hijabs face conservative backlash" The Telegraph
8. Iranian Journalist Denounced as ‘Whore’ Amid Women’s Rights Campaign
9. Stealthy freedom and insulation against Islam Raja News (in Persian)
10. Members of Stealthy Freedom Campaign Nedaye Enghelab (in Persian)
11. Iranian State Television Faked My Rape Time

• 2014 in the United Kingdom
• Internet activism