Women in Iran’s second-largest city will be banned from taking the Mashhad metro if they are not wearing a head covering, local media reported on Wednesday. Since the country’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Iranian law requires all women, regardless of nationality or religious belief, to wear a hijab that covers the head and neck while concealing the hair. But many have pushed the boundaries over the past two decades by allowing their head coverings to slide back and reveal more hair, especially in Tehran and other major cities. Mashhad’s deputy prosecutor wrote to the city’s governor “demanding he ban women not wearing an Islamic head covering from accessing the metro”, said the Young Journalists Club (YJC), a news agency linked to state television, publishing a copy of the June 26 letter. If officials do not enforce the ban by July 6 “they will be prosecuted”, the letter said.