On 1st February 2026, Ex-Muslims International (EXMI) calls on people everywhere to:
Burn your hijab. Light up in solidarity with the women of Iran on No Hijab Day!
The Iranian people have once again risked their lives in mass protests against an Islamic regime that suppresses society through the control, policing, and disciplining of women’s bodies. We stand in solidarity with the Iranian people at a time when thousands have been massacred for demanding an end to theocracy. The recent uprising continues the Women, Life, Freedom revolution sparked by the murder of Mahsa Jina Amini for defying mandatory hijab laws. Today, Iranians are mobilizing for a secular, democratic future rooted in the liberation of women and society at large.
In mainstream interpretations of Islamic doctrine, a woman’s body is a source of temptation, an object to be concealed in service of maintaining men’s authority over them and to ensure social order. In the West, however, hijab has been repurposed as a matter of personal choice and agency. It is a narrative championed by a small, privileged, and highly vocal minority who obscure the violence faced by women and girls who refuse to comply.
Nonetheless, the reality remains that for hundreds of millions of women around the world, hijab is enforced by religion, law, state, family, community, and the machinery of “modesty culture.” The hijab can never be a choice nor “empowering” while women and girls are jailed and killed for refusing submission.
Ex-MI applauds women everywhere who reject religious patriarchy. On “World No Hijab Day” on 1st February, burn your hijab to reject Islamic patriarchy, laws and norms that criminalizes women’s autonomy and demands submission. Stand in solidarity with those who recognize the hijab not as a cloth, but as a symbol of control.
Women are not property and do not belong to anyone except themselves!
#BurnYourHijab #NoHijabDay #WorldHijabDay
(Photo: Maryam Namazie burns her hijab and lights up with the women of Iran for No Hijab Day. Maryam is a multi-award winning Iranian-born campaigner and writer living in the UK. She is currently the Spokesperson of One Law for All and the Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain, a member of Ex-Muslims International.)