When she first started learning to ride a motorbike, Iranian Maryam Ghelich, now an instructor, would drive through Tehran’s empty streets at night to avoid scrutiny over her clothing or lack of a licence.

Fifteen years on, Ghelich has trained hundreds of women, helping them navigate not only the capital’s gridlocked streets but the barriers facing women motorcyclists in the conservative Islamic republic, with a marked surge in demand for lessons in recent months.

“This sport was one of my passions, and in Iran it had long been taken for granted that motorcycling was only for men,” she told AFP at a training centre in northern Tehran.

On streets and at intersections across Iran, women on mopeds and motorbikes wearing colourful helmets have become an increasingly common sight, signalling a subtle but noticeable shift in social attitudes over a matter of months.

“I tried to prove that women can also have successful participation in this field,” said 49-year-old Ghelich, a long-time member of Iran’s Motorcycling and Automobile Federation.

Ghelich, who is a certified instructor with the federation, explained how she had watched the change unfold in real time after spending more than a decade as one of only a handful of women riders.

“People’s perspectives in our society have really changed. It wasn’t accepted at all before,” she said, explaining there has been a sharp rise in women enrolling in her courses in recent months, whether for city riding or for racing.

“When I see the women we trained out riding on the streets, I really enjoy seeing that families are now accepting it,” she added.

Licensing issue

Despite the progress, motorbike and scooter licensing for women remains a major hurdle in Iran and a legally grey area.

While traffic laws do not explicitly ban women from riding, authorities have never issued motorcycle licences to them in practice, with the issue gaining urgency with the noticeable rise in women riding.

Niloufar, a 43-year-old fashion designer who asked only to be identified by her first name and who recently joined Ghelich’s city-riding course, said the lack of licences is of serious concern.

“Even if a woman rides very professionally, without a licence she will legally be blamed if she has an accident, even if she’s the victim,” she said.

Publicly, authorities have maintained that women can ride motorcycles. Government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani said there is “no legal prohibition”.

And in September, the head of Iran’s traffic police, Teymour Hosseini, said his officers did not have authorisation to give their own interpretation to the law on religious or any other grounds.

“The police enforce the law… whatever is issued, we are obliged to implement,” he added.

But others have continued to refer to the Islamic republic’s dress code, in place since shortly after the 1979 revolution and requiring women to wear loose clothing and cover their head and neck, as a block to women riding motorcycles.

“Some ride motorcycles with no hijab, improper hijab, or poor covering… such behaviour is against Sharia law,” said Abdolhossein Khosropanah of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, a state body overseeing Islamic cultural and educational policy.

Ultraconservative lawmaker Mohammed Seraj has argued: “Women riding motorcycles is improper and not compatible with the society’s culture.”

‘No reason to object’

Ghelich said clothing restrictions have long posed challenges for women riders.

She recalled races years ago when women participants were required to wear “long overalls” over their leather suits — a rule that she said “really restricted” riding.

But conditions for riding have eased over time, she said, and that even when police “seize motorcycles now, they let people go more easily, they give it back faster”.

Women in Iran have more broadly pushed against social boundaries in recent years, increasingly defying the Islamic republic’s strict rules, including the mandatory dress code.

The trend has accelerated after the September 2022 death in custody of Mahsa Amini, arrested for allegedly violating hijab rules.

Mona Nasehi, a 33-year-old beauty salon owner who began riding this year, said police once attempted to stop her — possibly because she was riding alone — but she was too afraid to pull over.

“I had heard from friends that police usually don’t mistreat women riders, but we all still have that fear that they might insult us or take our bike,” she said.

Nayereh Chitsazian, 53, who bought her motorbike last week, said that while her licence is the missing piece, all her other documentation is in place.

“The police have no reason to object,” she said.

“The motorcycles are registered, insured, so there’s no reason for them to stop us.”

• Two Daesh flags were found in the gunmen’s vehicle: state media.
• Gunmen identified as father-son duo Sajid Akram and Naveed Akram.
• PM hints at considering limits on weapons permitted by licence.

SYDNEY: Australia signalled plans for tougher gun laws on Monday as the country began mourning victims of its worst mass shooting in almost 30 years, in which a father and son duo killed 15 people at a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach.

The father, a 50-year-old, was killed at the scene, taking the number of dead to 16, while his 24-year-old son was in critical condition in hospital, police said at a press conference on Monday.

As many as 40 people were taken to hospital following the attack, including two police officers who are in serious but stable condition, police said. The victims were aged between 10 and 87.

Police did not release the shooters’ names, but said the father had held a firearms license since 2015 and had six registered weapons. One of the suspected attackers was known to authorities but had not been deemed an immediate threat, security officials said.

They were identified as Sajid Akram and his son Naveed Akram by state broadcaster ABC and other local media outlets.

Home Minister Tony Burke said the father arrived in Australia in 1998 on a student visa, while his son is an Australian-born citizen.

Police did not provide details about the firearms, but videos from the scene showed the men firing what appeared to be a bolt-action rifle and a shotgun.

“We are very much working through the background of both persons. At this stage, we know very little about them,” New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon told reporters.

Two Daesh flags were found in the gunmen’s vehicle, Australia’s national broadcaster ABC News said in a report, without citing any source.

The shooting has raised questions about whether Australia’s gun laws, already among the toughest in the world, remain fit for purpose.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said he would ask cabinet to consider limits on the number of weapons permitted by a gun licence, and how long a licence should last.

“People’s circumstances can change,” he told reporters.

“People can be radicalised over a period of time. Licences should not be in perpetuity.”

Hero bystander

Witnesses said the attack at the famed beach, which was packed on a hot weekend evening, lasted about 10 minutes, sending about 1,000 people attending a Hanukkah event scattering along the sand and into nearby streets.

A bystander captured on video tackling and disarming an armed man during the attack has been hailed as a hero whose actions saved lives. 7News Australia named him as Ahmed al Ahmed, citing a relative, who said the 43-year-old fruit shop owner had been shot twice and had undergone surgery.

A fundraising page for the man had raised more than A$550,000 ($365,000) by Monday afternoon.

Bondi local Morgan Gabriel, 27, said she had been heading to a nearby cinema when she heard what she thought were fireworks, before people started running up her street.

“I sheltered about six or seven. Two of them were actually my close friends, and the rest were just people that were on the street … their phones had been left down the beach, and everyone was just trying to get away,” she said.

“It’s a very sad time this morning [….] Normally, like on a Monday or any morning, it’s packed. People are swimming, surfing, running. So this is very, very quiet. And there’s definitely a solemn sort of vibe.”

A makeshift memorial with flowers and Israeli and Australian flags was set up at the Bondi pavilion and an online condolence book was established.

Police and private Jewish security guards wearing earpieces were positioned around as mourners paid respects and laid flowers.

‘Pure evil’

Authorities said they were confident only two attackers were involved in the incident, after previously saying they were checking whether a third offender was involved.

At the suspects’ home in Bonnyrigg, a suburb around 36 kilometres (22 miles) west of the central business district, there was a heavy police presence on Monday, with a cordon wrapping around several neighbouring houses.

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese visited Bondi Beach on Monday morning to lay flowers near the scene of the attack.

“What we saw yesterday was an act of pure evil, an act of antisemitism, an act of terrorism on our shores in an iconic Australian location,” Albanese told reporters.

“The Jewish community are hurting today. Today, all Australians wrap our arms around them and say, we stand with you. We will do whatever is necessary to stamp out antisemitism. It is a scourge, and we will eradicate it together.”

Albanese said several world leaders including US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron had reached out and offered condolences and support.

Sunday’s shootings were the most serious in a string of antisemitic attacks on synagogues, buildings and cars in Australia since the beginning of Israel’s war in Gaza in October 2023.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had warned Albanese that Australia’s support for Palestinian statehood would fuel antisemitism.

In August, Australia accused Iran of directing at least two antisemitic attacks and gave Tehran’s ambassador a week to leave the country.

‘Rare’ mass shooting

Mass shootings are rare in Australia, one of the world’s safest countries. Sunday’s attack was the worst since 1996, when a gunman killed 35 people at the Port Arthur tourist site in the southern island state of Tasmania.

Rabbi Mendel Kastel, whose brother-in-law Eli Schlanger was killed in Sunday’s attack, said it had been a harrowing evening.

“You can very easily become very angry and try to blame people, turn on people but that’s not what this is about. It’s about a community,” he said.

“We need to step up at a time like this, be there for each other, and come together. And we will, and we will get through this, and we know that. The Australian community will help us do it,” he added.

Local woman Danielle, who declined to give her surname, was at the beach when the shooting occurred and raced to collect her daughter, who was attending a bar mitzvah at a function centre near where the alleged shooters were positioned.

“I heard there was a shooting so I bolted there to get my daughter, I could hear gunshots, I saw bodies on the ground. We are used to being scared, we have felt this way since October 7.”

Australia’s Jewish diaspora is small but deeply embedded in the wider community, with about 150,000 people who identify as Jewish in the country of 27 million. About one-third of them are estimated to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi.

Two alleged gunmen who killed 15 people at a Jewish celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach were a father and son, police said on Monday, 

According to the Australian media reports, Naveed was apprehended at the shooting and taken to the hospital, where he remains under police guard in a critical but stable condition. His father Sajid, who was reported to have owned a fruit shop, died at the scene.

Australia’s Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke confirmed Sajid arrived in Australia on a student visa in 1998, which was converted to a partner visa in 2001, and that he has since held a resident return visa. Burke also said Sajid’s son, Naveed, is an Australian citizen born in 2001.

According to reports, the pair had told family they were going on a South Coast fishing trip, with Naveed’s mother, Verena, saying he had gone to Jervis Bay with his father for the weekend and last spoke to the family on Sunday morning.

Verena was reported to have said her son was an unemployed bricklayer who had been laid off about two months earlier when the company he worked for became insolvent. She was also reported to have said he had many friends during his high school days at Cabramatta High School, but was not particularly social and did not appear to spend much time online.

The report said Naveed appeared to be tagged in a 2022 social media post showing he had passed Holy Quran studies at the Al-Murad Institute in Heckenberg, a post it said has since been removed.

Verena was unable to identify Akram from a photo from the scene of the shooting, but said she did not believe her son could be involved in violent or extremist activity, saying: “He doesn’t have a firearm.”

A man pictured in the 2022 image, whom the report said it chose not to identify, was quoted as saying he had lost contact with Naveed in early 2022 and was devastated by images of the victims, adding that he and his family had been forced to leave their home after receiving death threats.

The report said Verena is a stay-at-home parent caring for her elderly mother nearby, and that Naveed lived at the family home in Bonnyrigg in Sydney’s west with his parents, a younger sister, 22, and a brother, 20.

Police were reported to be on scene at the Bonnyrigg home, with members of the public prevented from entering the area. The report said the three-bedroom property was bought in 2024, and that the family previously lived in Cabramatta.