Nicola Smith – Indonesian women are fighting for the rights of Iranians to ditch their mandatory hijabs, amid fears that their own freedom to choose whether to wear a headscarf is under threat.
Some 200 rights activists gathered in front of the Iranian embassy in the Indonesian capital Jakarta this week. They were demanding an investigation into the estimated hundreds of Iranian women and children who have been killed during a violent state crackdown on their revolt against strict Islamic dress codes.
Activist Ririn Sefsani, the head of the NGO "Commitment for Change" and one of the organisers of the Jakarta rally, called on the Indonesian government to speak up and urge Iran to stop all forms of violence against citizens fighting for human rights.
Indonesia should set an example that women have the right to choose their own clothes, she said.
But activists like Ms Sefsani have also warned that Iran is a cautionary tale for Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation. Over the past two decades, women and girls have faced spiralling legal and social pressure to wear clothing deemed Islamic under Sharia law.
She said she hoped Iran would become more open and democratic, but also raise awareness in her home country that "we don't want Indonesia to become like Iran."
"We hope that [the protests] can inspire Indonesian people to be considered and aware that they should not push women to wear a hijab in the name of religion or morality," she told the Telegraph. "We don't want Indonesia to become like "Indo-nestan", meaning Afghanistan or Pakistan or Iran."
Creeping conservative Islam
Rights groups have long rung alarm bells about the spread of conservative Islam in Indonesia and its impact on civil rights.
A 2021 report by Human Rights Watch said most of the country's provinces and dozens of cities and regencies were imposing discriminatory and abusive dress codes on women and girls, highlighting evidence of the "harmful impact" through more than 100 interviews that revealed long term consequences for refusing to wear the hijab.
The report documented widespread bullying of girls and women to force them to cover up, as well as the deep psychological distress the bullying can cause.
It said that in at least 24 of the country's 34 provinces, girls who did not comply were forced to leave school or withdrew under pressure, while some female civil servants, including teachers, doctors, school principals, and university lecturers, lost their jobs or felt compelled to resign.
While the central government has no legal authority to revoke local laws, the home ministry has the power to nullify local executive orders that contradict national laws and the constitution.
"Indonesia's Minister of Home Affairs Tito Karnavian should immediately overturn discriminatory, rights-abusing provincial and local decrees that violate the rights of women and girls. These decrees do real harm and as a practical matter will only be ended by central government action," said Andreas Harsono, an Indonesia-based researcher for HRW.
Some of the strictest dress codes are found in Aceh, the only Indonesian province to implement Islamic law, or Sharia.
Donna Swita, an Acehnese activist at the Institute for Women's Empowerment, said she had been arrested three times for not covering her hair.
While she had not been jailed, she had felt psychologically intimidated by the authorities' actions, she said.
Ms Swita said she feared some areas of the nation were becoming more fundamentalist, like Iran. "It's not only in Aceh, it's spreading around the country," she said.
The Indonesian home ministry and the ministry for religious affairs have been contacted for comment.