Iranians knock turbans off clerics' heads in a show of contempt amid hijab protests

A Shiite cleric in cloak and turban waits at a bus stop on a street in Iran, where a young man walking past casually flicks off his turban, the moment filmed to be shared online.

Until recently, the seven-second video, reportedly filmed in Iran’s second city of Mashhad, home to the Shiite pilgrimage site of the shrine of Imam Reza, would have shown an act of unthinkable irreverence.

But for many Iranians, years of mounting anger at a religious establishment that has run the country as a hardline theocracy since the 1979 revolution have eroded ingrained respect for the Shiite establishment, to the point where clergymen are now a lightning rod for public frustration.

From the streets of Tehran to the religious heartland of Qom, Iranians have shown their contempt for the clerical regime by knocking the turbans from the heads of mullahs.

In one video a man in a red T-shirt brandishes his middle fingers in a cleric’s face as he attempts to walk through an angry crowd. The cleric’s turban is knocked to the ground and as he bends to retrieve it a young man kicks it away. "Cleric get lost," an unseen man chants.

While such incidents occurred prior to the death of Mahsa Amini, they appear to have increased in frequency since the 22-year-old died after being detained for “inappropriate attire” by morality police last month.

In one widely shared video from the religious city of Qom last December, a woman kicked and knocked the turban from a cleric who had hit her with his cane after demanding she wear her hijab correctly. The woman was later arrested, according to Hawza News, the agency of Qom's Seminaries.

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