The 2024 Iranian Hijab and Chastity Law is a new frontier in state control and social surveillance mechanisms, meriting close examination against the framework of Foucault's theoretical framework regarding power, discipline, and resistance. The paper focuses on how this law leverages complex technological infrastructure, economic penalties, and institutional enforcement to build an integrated regime of bodily policing and social conformity. Through the perspective of Foucauldian concepts such as the Panopticon, biopower, and governmentality, the paper shows how digital surveillance technologies, AI, and automated enforcement systems transform an old religious authority into a modern control apparatus. The study illustrates that although the law brings about a level of surveillance and regulation never seen before, at the same time, it reveals some critical hidden vulnerabilities of the state. The paper argues that the same intensity of mechanisms of control foments new forms of resistance, from individual acts of defiance to concerted digital activism. Based on elaborate legal analysis and expert opinions, this study concludes that the effort of the law to achieve a form of total control turns out paradoxically to disclose its limitations, as women devise sophisticated strategies of resistance within the systems engineered to constrain them. This paper contributes to understanding how new surveillance technologies remake older power relations and how resistance emerges within a seemingly totalizing control system.
| Published in | International Journal of Systems Engineering (Volume 9, Issue 1) |
| DOI | 10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12 |
| Page(s) | 9-18 |
| Creative Commons |
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, provided the original work is properly cited. |
| Copyright |
Copyright © The Author(s), 2025. Published by Science Publishing Group |
Foucault, Surveillance, Biopower, Resistance, Hijab Law, IRAN, Digital Control, Governmentality
| [1] | Akbar, Ali. "Sedigheh Vasmaghi: A New Voice of Iranian Religious Reformism." Iranian Studies 55, no. 4(2022): 1045-64. |
| [2] | Ali, Sajid, and Mahsa Kayyal. "The Impact of Mandatory Hijab Laws on Women's Rights in Iran: A Human Rights Perspective." (2023). |
| [3] | Azari, Hajar, and Nasrin Tabatabai Hesari. "The Iranian Legal System Challenges Regarding Accession to the Human Rights Treaties from the Perspective of International Law." Comparative Law Review 8, no. 1(2017): 1-24. |
| [4] | Bayat, Farimah, and Nancy Hodges. "Just Say "No" to Compulsory Hijab: Exploring the Motivations and Meanings of Bad-Hijabi in Iran." Clothing and Textiles Research Journal 42, no. 4(2024): 247-62. |
| [5] | Ceyhan, Ayse. "Surveillance as Biopower." In Routledge Handbook of Surveillance Studies, 38-45: Routledge, 2012. |
| [6] | Cheshko, Valentin. "Technology of Biopolitics and Biopolitics of Technologies (Metaphysical, Political, and Anthropological Essay)." (2019). |
| [7] | Cusack, Simone, and Lisa Pusey. "Cedaw and the Rights to Non-Discrimination and Equality." Melb. J. Int'l L. 14(2013): 54. |
| [8] | Devalle, Susana BC. "Weapons of the Weak. Everyday Forms of Resistance." JSTOR, 1990. |
| [9] | Dezfuli, Seyed Milad Kashefi Pour. "The Biopolitics of Hijab in Iran." Open Journal of Political Science 14, no. 3(2024): 512-30. |
| [10] | Dolan, Frederick M. "The Paradoxical Liberty of Bio-Power: Hannah Arendt and Michel Foucault on Modern Politics." Philosophy & Social Criticism 31, no. 3(2005): 369-80. |
| [11] | Farmanfarma, Amir. "Constitutional Law of Iran." The American Journal of Comparative Law (1954): 241-47. |
| [12] | Fary, Janet, and Kevin B Anderson. Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism. University of Chicago Press, 2019. |
| [13] | Foucault, Michel. "Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane." G. Kendall, G., & G. Wickham (1999) Using Foucault's methods. London, Sage (1977). |
| [14] | Foucault, Michel. "Panopticism." In The Information Society Reader, 302-12: Routledge, 2020. |
| [15] | Herberg, Martin. "Global Governance and Conflict of Laws from a Foucauldian Perspective: The Power/Knowledge Nexus Revisited." Transnational Legal Theory 2, no. 2(2011): 243-69. |
| [16] | Hoffman, Marcelo. "Disciplinary Power." In Michel Foucault, 27-39: Routledge, 2014. |
| [17] |
IranWire. "Iranian Activists Condemn Hijab and Chastity Law as 'Medieval'." IranWire, December 2, 2024.
https://iranwire.com/en/women/136666-iranian-activists-condemn-hijab-and-chastity-law-as-medieval/ |
| [18] | Islamic Consultative Assembly. "Hijab and Chastity Law." (2024). |
| [19] | Kim, Sang-Hyun. "Science and Technology: National Identity, Self-Reliance, Technocracy and Biopolitics." The palgrave handbook of mass dictatorship (2016): 81-97. |
| [20] | Langlaude, Sylvie. "The Iccpr." In The Right of the Child to Religious Freedom in International Law, 63-97: Brill Nijhoff, 2007. |
| [21] | Leezenberg, Michiel. "Power and Political Spirituality: Michel Foucault on the Islamic Revolution in Iran." In Michel Foucault and Theology, 111-28: Routledge, 2017. |
| [22] | Manokha, Ivan. "Surveillance, Panopticism, and Self-Discipline in the Digital Age." Surveillance and Society 16, no. 2(2018). |
| [23] | Miller, Kristin J. "Human Rights of Women in Iran: The Universalist Approach and the Relativist Response." Emory Int'l L. Rev. 10(1996): 779. |
| [24] | Mir-Hosseini, Ziba. "The Politics and Hermeneutics of Hijab in Iran: From Confinement to Choice." Muslim World Journal of Human Rights 4, no. 1(2007). |
| [25] | Nadesan, Majia Holmer. Governmentality, Biopower, and Everyday Life. Routledge, 2010. |
| [26] | Padovan, Dario. "Biopolitics and the Social Control of the Multitude." Democracy & Nature 9, no. 3(2003): 473-94. |
| [27] | Pugliese, Joseph. Biometrics: Bodies, Technologies, Biopolitics. Routledge, 2012. |
| [28] | Shirazi‐Mahajan, Faegheh. "The Politics of Clothing in the Middle East: The Case of Hijab in Post‐Revolution Iran." Critique: Journal of Critical Studies of Iran & the Middle East 2, no. 2(1993): 54-63. |
| [29] | Shirazizadeh, Fatemeh. "Compulsory Hijab in Iran: Functions and Impacts on Iranians' Daily Life During 44 Years of Islamic State." 2024. |
| [30] | Smith, Carole. "The Sovereign State V Foucault: Law and Disciplinary Power." The Sociological Review 48, no. 2(2000): 283-306. |
| [31] | Turkel, Gerald. "Michel Foucault: Law, Power, and Knowledge." Journal of law and society 17, no. 2(1990): 170-93. |
| [32] | United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. "Iran: UN Experts Call for Hijab and Chastity Law to Be Repealed." Press Release, December 13, 2024. |
| [33] | Wallenstein, Sven-Olov, and Jakob Nilsson. Foucault, Biopolitics, and Governmentality. Södertörns högskola, 2013. |
| [34] | Woolhandler, Justin. "Toward a Foucauldian Legal Method." U. Pitt. L. Rev. 76(2014): 131. |
APA Style
Nazem, Y. (2025). Iran's 2024 Hijab and Chastity Law Criminalizes Freedom Through Surveillance and Disciplinary Power. International Journal of Systems Engineering, 9(1), 9-18. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12
ACS Style
Nazem, Y. Iran's 2024 Hijab and Chastity Law Criminalizes Freedom Through Surveillance and Disciplinary Power. Int. J. Syst. Eng. 2025, 9(1), 9-18. doi: 10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12
Share This Article
Twitter
Linked In
Facebook
Copy
Download@article{10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12,
author = {Yeganeh Nazem},
title = {Iran's 2024 Hijab and Chastity Law Criminalizes Freedom Through Surveillance and Disciplinary Power
},
journal = {International Journal of Systems Engineering},
volume = {9},
number = {1},
pages = {9-18},
doi = {10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12},
url = {https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12},
eprint = {https://article.sciencepublishinggroup.com/pdf/10.11648.j.ijse.20250901.12},
abstract = {The 2024 Iranian Hijab and Chastity Law is a new frontier in state control and social surveillance mechanisms, meriting close examination against the framework of Foucault's theoretical framework regarding power, discipline, and resistance. The paper focuses on how this law leverages complex technological infrastructure, economic penalties, and institutional enforcement to build an integrated regime of bodily policing and social conformity. Through the perspective of Foucauldian concepts such as the Panopticon, biopower, and governmentality, the paper shows how digital surveillance technologies, AI, and automated enforcement systems transform an old religious authority into a modern control apparatus. The study illustrates that although the law brings about a level of surveillance and regulation never seen before, at the same time, it reveals some critical hidden vulnerabilities of the state. The paper argues that the same intensity of mechanisms of control foments new forms of resistance, from individual acts of defiance to concerted digital activism. Based on elaborate legal analysis and expert opinions, this study concludes that the effort of the law to achieve a form of total control turns out paradoxically to disclose its limitations, as women devise sophisticated strategies of resistance within the systems engineered to constrain them. This paper contributes to understanding how new surveillance technologies remake older power relations and how resistance emerges within a seemingly totalizing control system.
},
year = {2025}
}
TY - JOUR T1 - Iran's 2024 Hijab and Chastity Law Criminalizes Freedom Through Surveillance and Disciplinary Power AU - Yeganeh Nazem Y1 - 2025/08/28 PY - 2025 N1 - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12 DO - 10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12 T2 - International Journal of Systems Engineering JF - International Journal of Systems Engineering JO - International Journal of Systems Engineering SP - 9 EP - 18 PB - Science Publishing Group SN - 2640-4230 UR - https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijse.20250901.12 AB - The 2024 Iranian Hijab and Chastity Law is a new frontier in state control and social surveillance mechanisms, meriting close examination against the framework of Foucault's theoretical framework regarding power, discipline, and resistance. The paper focuses on how this law leverages complex technological infrastructure, economic penalties, and institutional enforcement to build an integrated regime of bodily policing and social conformity. Through the perspective of Foucauldian concepts such as the Panopticon, biopower, and governmentality, the paper shows how digital surveillance technologies, AI, and automated enforcement systems transform an old religious authority into a modern control apparatus. The study illustrates that although the law brings about a level of surveillance and regulation never seen before, at the same time, it reveals some critical hidden vulnerabilities of the state. The paper argues that the same intensity of mechanisms of control foments new forms of resistance, from individual acts of defiance to concerted digital activism. Based on elaborate legal analysis and expert opinions, this study concludes that the effort of the law to achieve a form of total control turns out paradoxically to disclose its limitations, as women devise sophisticated strategies of resistance within the systems engineered to constrain them. This paper contributes to understanding how new surveillance technologies remake older power relations and how resistance emerges within a seemingly totalizing control system. VL - 9 IS - 1 ER -
Department of Culture, Religion and Social Studies, University of Southeastern Norway, Drammen, Norway
Information