The decision to release the report — which found that 49.8 per cent of Iranians,both women and men,consider the Islamic veil a private matter and think the government should have no say in it — appears to pit President Hassan Rouhani directly against Iran's hard-line judiciary,which on Friday said that 29 people had been detained in connection with the protests. They have called the demonstrations"childish",insist that the large majority of Iranians support Islamic veiling and have called for harsher measures against those protesting the veil.
At least as striking as the report's findings was the timing of its release. The study is from 2014,and publishing it now suggests that the president saw this as a moment to challenge the hard-liners,who hold ultimate power,about such a symbolically potent issue.
Observers said the release of the report,by one of Rouhani's closest advisers,was probably a politically calculated decision by the president,an Islamic cleric,to bolster support for social reforms and to signal to the authorities to temper their response to the veil protests.
"The government wants to show that any crackdown against the veil is illegal and not democratic,"said Fazel Meybodi,a reformist cleric from the city of Qom."Anyway,crackdowns and punishment are not a part of Islam."
Rouhani,a moderate compared to Iran's hard-liners,decades ago prided himself on having been the one responsible for introducing the law on the compulsory Islamic veil. But since his election as president in 2013,and continuing after his re-election last year,he has called for more freedoms for Iranians.
"Mr President wants to be popular,and his team knows that an increasing number of women do not like the Islamic code of dress,"said Farshad Ghorbanpour,a political analyst close to the government."They want to woo the women and make sure the popularity of the president does not diminish even further."