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.

  • 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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          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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                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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          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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            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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                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.

                  • AreaSIX @lemm.ee
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                    2 days ago

                    I don’t ‘hate’ you, you’re just a commenter on Lemmy. I pointed out the obvious bigotry in your assumption of the woman being Muslim because she’s Iranian, despite the article making it clear she was harassing Muslim women. And you have done absolutely zero to dispell that conclusion. Assuming that my criticism is ‘hate’ just makes it clear that you’re unwilling to examine your own ideas from a critical perspective. Criticizing the civility of my comments reinforces the same conclusion. I’ve been very matter of fact, criticizing the substance of what you’ve written. I haven’t made any personal attacks as far as I can see. But you just keep doing the holier than thou thing.

                    Pointing to other bigoted comments doesn’t change the bigotry in your assumption, it just points to even more bigoted assumptions. Yeah, yours is more nuanced, but a more nuanced bigotry doesn’t mean it’s not bigotry.

                    Again, you assumed an Iranian woman is Muslim despite the article making it clear she was being bigoted against other muslim women. Ask yourself why you made that assumption if not because in your view, Iranian=muslim.

        • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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          3 days ago

          I’ve spent a good 60 seconds looking at this picture trying to figure out what it is supposed to mean and I still don’t know.

          • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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            3 days ago

            It’s a reference to Redditors circlejerking about the same picture of an Iranian woman wearing a bikini in the 1960s. The rest of the country was not dressed like that at all but it makes for a good propaganda story about how the west liberated Iran by overthrowing their government.

            For more information https://www.reddit.com/r/Izlam/comments/8tpg4l/imagine_thinking_you_understand_the_history_of_a/

            And no Muslim that practices the faith will tell you wearing a Hijab is optional for Muslim women. It is not a contested opinion among any scholar either.

            • barsoap@lemm.ee
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              There’s no mention of Hijabs in the Quran and “dress modestly” is very much relative. You also may or may not see Turks drinking plum wine but they’re definitely drinking beer and most definitely Raki.

                • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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                  I can’t believe I’m getting involved in this but then you can surely show where it’s mentioned clearly?

                  • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                    3 days ago

                    And tell the believing women to reduce [some] of their vision and guard their private parts and not expose their adornment except that which [necessarily] appears thereof and to wrap [a portion of] their headcovers over their chests and not expose their adornment except to their husbands… until the end of the verse.

                    Surah al nur, verse 31.

                    It then explicitly assumes that they’re wearing a headcover. The main debate around this verse and similar ones is whether the face and hands must be covered or not, and not whether everything else must be covered.

            • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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              It’s a reference to Redditors circlejerking about the same picture of an Iranian woman wearing a bikini in the 1960s.

              Cool, I wasn’t doing that. I was explaining why she might be a Muslim and still be against them.

              And no Muslim that practices the faith will tell you wearing a Hijab is optional for Muslims.

              I look forward to seeing you tell all those millions of religious Turkish women who do not wear anything on their head that they are not Muslims. I hope you forward me their responses when you let them know you have decided what their religion is.

              Edit: South Asian women too.

              • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
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                Even if they don’t wear hijab, they’ll acknowledge that it’s obligatory and what they’re doing is, in fact, haram. If you say hijab isn’t obligatory without an excuse like not knowing the correct ruling you do, in fact, cease to be a Muslim according to Sunni Islam consensus.

                • Flying Squid@lemmy.worldM
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                  Even if they don’t wear hijab, they’ll acknowledge that it’s obligatory and what they’re doing is, in fact, haram.

                  Ah, you speak for these women do you? Are you even a woman yourself?

                  Your interpretation of Islam is not the only interpretation of Islam.

                  • geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml
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                    There is no scholar disputing this. Turkey is heavily secularized you might have heard of a guy called Atatürk.

                    If a woman doesn’t want to wear a Hijab that’s up to her. But you don’t claim this is a contested subject among any Islamic scholars or part of Islam. It’s stated extremely clear.

            • footoro@sh.itjust.works
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              If you follow the madhhab of YouTube and you rely too much on Sheikh Wikipedia, you may draw this conclusion but it’s really more nuanced than this and I thought we’re past this kind of radicalism where only one opinion is valid and everyone else goes to hell since ISIS got busted more or less.

          • jerkface@lemmy.ca
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            3 days ago

            It’s a bit tortured, I think. Tourist is visiting a scenic vista which we might call reality, and chooses to take a photograph of a photograph of that same vista, preferring the curated and potentially slanted view that it presents.

    • 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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          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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              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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                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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                  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.