The Running Battle: Marathon Runners Challenge Mandatory Dress Code on Kish Island

The current wave of public defiance, which the Kish Marathon incident is clearly a part of, is fundamentally rooted in the mass protests that erupted across Iran following the tragic 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Amini, a young Kurdish woman, was detained for an alleged breach of the dress code, and her subsequent death ignited a nationwide, women-led anti-establishment movement. While the initial violent protests were eventually suppressed by security forces, the movement permanently altered the landscape of social compliance, leading to a visible and dramatic increase in the number of women choosing to forgo the headscarf in urban public spaces, making the enforcement of the law increasingly sporadic and challenging for the authorities.