Woman who removed her head scarf during Iran protests may have been rearrested

TEHRAN — One day late last month, a woman wearing black trousers and gray sneakers climbed atop a telephone utility box in Tehran’s crowded Enghelab Square.

In an act of defiance as quiet as it was striking, she removed her white head scarf, tied it to a stick and waved the garment back and forth like a flag in protest against modesty laws that require Iranian women to cover their hair.

In cell phone videos captured by onlookers, her movements are slow, almost hypnotic, her dark hair flowing down to the middle of her back.

Weeks later, after Iran was shaken by the biggest antigovernment protests in nearly a decade, the woman’s whereabouts are unknown.