As ‘Hijab Clinics’ Become a New Norm in Iran, Women Detail Forced Psychiatric Detentions and Brutal Crackdowns

Earlier this month, a young Iranian woman’s defiant protest in Mashhad emerged as a stark symbol of resistance against the Islamic Republic’s escalating crackdown on women's rights. Standing unclothed atop a police vehicle, she shouted slogans against the regime — her act of civil disobedience laying bare the deepening tensions between Iran’s hardline government and activists challenging its stringent gender-based restrictions.

Within hours, pro-government social media accounts began circulating claims that the protester suffered from mental illness — something Iranian activists say has become a recurring accusation used to undermine women who challenge the regime’s mandatory dress codes and other restrictive policies. One comment on Twitter called the woman “crazy,” stating that “no mentally stable critic, in accordance with societal norms and ethics, would commit such stupidity.” Another user suggested she was “bipolar,” while another argued that “under normal circumstances, being completely naked is closer to a psychological disorder than a deliberate action.”

Since Mahsa Amini’s death in police custody over alleged hijab violations in September 2022 sparked nationwide protests, Iranian women have persisted in challenging the country’s morality laws.

Yet the regime’s response has grown increasingly severe — security forces now intensify street patrols and employ brutal tactics against women protesters, from targeted shootings to violent detentions. Reports document officers deliberately targeting women's faces and bodies with ammunition, while others describe protesters being forcibly dragged into vans, blindfolded, and held for days in detention centers.

Women’s rights advocates warn these escalating measures reflect a systematic campaign to crush dissent and reassert control over public spaces. And the regime's latest strategy, they say, includes using psychiatric institutions — called “hijab clinics” by the government — to discredit and silence protesters.

Nargis, a 22-year-old media professional from Tehran, told More to Her Story that she was detained for nine hours by morality police agents in May 2024. That day, she was approached by five female morality police agents who were accompanied by two male police officers driving a van. They began harassing her for wearing her headscarf to her shoulders and eventually dragged her into a van, refusing to let her call her family for help.

Nargis was then taken to a detention center 20 minutes away in northern Tehran, where the agents hurled insults at her, calling her a “slut” who wanted to “please her American handlers,” Nargis said, adding that “they didn’t physically hurt me, but tortured me mentally and denied food and water for the next seven to eight hours.” 

Officers then forced Nargis to sign documents stating that she was mentally ill and that she had agreed to be sent to a psychiatric facility. “I signed the papers and waited for hours before they released me. I still fear they will use that letter to one day knock on my door and send me to one of these centers [again],” she said.

Although it has been almost one year since her detention, Nargis fears the day she might be taken back. Since her detention, the Iranian parliament has faced an uphill battle in enacting a controversial hijab law that passed in September 2023 and was paused in December 2024 after global backlash. If implemented in its current statute, women who defy the law could face prison sentences of up to 10 to 15 years and even the death penalty. 

31-year-old Roya Zakeri was also taken to a psychiatric facility after a video showing her chanting slogans “death to Khamenei” and “death to the dictator” went viral on social media in October 2023. State-funded media labeled Zakeri mentally unstable.

 “They restricted the family’s access to Roya and had intelligence agents guarding the women’s ward [where Zakeri was held.] The guards controlled the medical roster, too,” said a nurse aware of Zakeri’s case. 

The regime’s tactics of psychiatric coercion emerged long before the current wave of protests. In 2018, Iranian-Canadian human rights activist Azam Jangravi faced similar pressure after she stood atop an electrical box in Tehran and removed her hijab in protest.

“After they arrested me, an interrogator questioned me for eight hours on the first day,” Jangravi recalled. “The second day, they tried to convince my family that if they declared I had a mental issue, they would release me. My family refused.”

The interrogators then accused her of being a prostitute seeking attention before attempting a final strategy. “The third day, they sent me to the forensic center so the doctors would declare that I was mentally ill. But the doctor cleared me of having any psychological issues.”

For Iranian journalist Sima Sabet, who survived a foiled assassination attempt in 2022, these efforts to pathologize dissent have failed to silence a growing movement. 

“In the face of this psychological warfare, the resilience of these women speaks louder than any label the regime can impose,” she told More to Her Story. “They are not mentally ill — they are the voices of a revolution demanding freedom.”