‘They Can’t Arrest Us All’: How Tehran's Metro Became an Underground Protest Site

Below the streets of Iran’s capital, a quiet but powerful protest movement is unfolding.

Across the carriages and platforms of the Tehran Metro, small acts of resistance are everywhere, mirroring the widespread demonstrations that are taking place in the country’s streets, as people demand greater freedom and rights for women.

Here, protest slogans plaster subway walls, and anti-government chants ring out through the tunnels.

Some 3 million people in the mega-city’s population of 14 million take the metro every day, and with a smaller police presence, women feel more free to reject the country’s strict dress code around wearing headscarves.

For nearly two months, Iran has been roiled by protests against the country’s morality police and ruling clerics after the death of Mahsa Amini, who died in police custody on the 16th of September after being accused of dressing improperly. Since she died, tens of thousands of mostly young Iranians have taken to the streets across the country in response, calling for more rights and even revolution.

In the Tehran Metro, large crowds gather during rush hour, and chant popular political slogans such as, “Death to the tyrant, be it the shah or the mullah.” Clips of sporadic protests in metro stations are shared online more and more frequently, with more women refusing to wear headscarves inside train carriages. 

Tehran’s metro is vast, with seven lines and 145 stations. The large number of people using the service during rush hour has provided people, particularly women, with a safe space to protest against the government. 

The city’s traffic is notoriously terrible, but its metro line is among the most affordable public transport systems in the world – a day ticket costs just 4,500 Iranian Rials ($0.11). It’s become a key part of daily life for the city’s working class, students, and young people. Despite heavy surveillance and cameras set up inside the stations, crowds have for weeks been gathering on platforms and inside trains, often chanting anti-government slogans.

As anti-government demonstrations have developed, new protest trends have emerged, from knocking off clergymen’s turbans to young couples posting photographs of themselves kissing while riding the metro, and in other public places.

The network has been the setting for mostly peaceful protests in the past, most recently in 2021 as parts of the country grappled with a water crisis. 

Public transport is gender segregated in Iran, with carriages divided with metal bars, creating sections for women, men and families. Women say this is yet another everyday reminder of how conservative Iran is. 

“The carriages being divided between men and women is already a regular reminder of the reality of Iran, [which exists] no matter how much we try to build our own lives alongside all the rules and regulations,” said Parisi, who spoke using a pseudonym for security reasons. 

Women can be fined and jailed for breaking the “modesty” dress code, which includes wearing a dark headscarf in public, as well as a long jacket that falls at least to the knees, and a long list of “chastity rules.” Despite the law being harshly enforced for over four decades, women in Iran have found ways to circumvent the restrictive laws by wearing colourful fabrics and showing some of their hair – far from the ideals set by the clergymen who rule the country. 

Iran’s feared morality police, known as Ershad, has tried to enforce hijab laws by patrolling the public transport system since July this summer, when the state was cracking down on dress-code violations. But with large crowds gathering inside the metro, many of the police officers just choose to just park their green-and-white vans outside the station entrances. 

In July, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi passed a series of laws and bills to crack down on a growing trend of young women failing to follow the so-called hijab laws, which he described as “un-Islamic.” 

The ongoing protests highlight how young Iranians are increasingly refusing to follow these laws. 

Amini was detained by a unit in a crowded public place during a family visit to Tehran. Her death triggered an outpouring of fury not seen since the protests against the strictly Islamic government instated after the revolution of 1979. The backlash against the regime in the aftermath of Amini’s death has seen protests continued by university students despite mass arrests and a crackdown on their dormitories. 

Still, nearly two months after Amini’s death, crowds of young people continue to stage sit-ins at universities across Iran. 

“Her death was felt by all women in Iran, and the rest is a simple message of having enough of getting harassed by Ershad,” said Zahra, a woman in Tehran, who spoke to VICE World News under a pseudonym for security reasons. 

Videos circulated on social media from Tehran Metro stations have shown Iranian women removing their scarves, including footage of a woman dancing inside the metro. 

The government has said it will track women who defy the hijab laws using CCTV, but so far nobody has faced repercussions for protesting on the metro. Regime sympathisers trying to take photographs of women removing their headscarves have found themselves being booed and heckled by other commuters.  

“It takes a person or two to start a noise in the crowd waiting on the platforms,” said Shirin, an Iranian woman speaking under a pseudonym for security reasons.

Shirin takes the metro every day. “[The protest] isn’t something new to the Tehran metro,” she said, “but it is slowly turning into a space where people feel safe to express their anger at the regime because people protect each other from the police, or anyone who would bother a woman for her clothing or head-covering.” 

“People in Iran are learning to take matters into their hands, and there aren’t enough Ershad vans parked outside the metro stations to arrest us all,” another woman told VICE World News, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The Iranian government only allows approved state media to operate in the country, and it describes the protest movement as “riots”.

“We Iranians usually roll our eyes at whatever the government says, and with mass protests ongoing in the country, they are the last people to listen to hear the truth,” said Maryam, an Iranian woman speaking under a pseudonym for security reasons.

President Raisi, a hardliner and a member of the clergy, came to power easily in an election last year. A favoured former student of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s Supreme Leader, Raisi is expected to follow in his footsteps after his time as president is up. In Iran, clergymen – who are called mullahs – have the last say in every single political matter, even if there is a parliament and a functioning civil government on the sidelines. 

“The mullahs have a picture of an ideal woman in their head, and even if it sounds ridiculous, we learned to live and put up with it all. But this summer, it just started to become too much to tolerate anymore,” Maryam added. 

Iran has accused Israel and the US of fuelling the protests, but young women have had enough, a Tehran-based woman speaking under condition of anonymity, told VICE World News. 

“The mullahs are like broken records and blame some foreign countries for every mess in the country,” she said, “but people have had enough of [listening to] every dumb regulation out there.”