Know who is Iran’s ‘morality police’ that has been punishing women for decades

A young Iranian woman was taken off the streets of Tehran by the country’s notorious morality police and taken to a “re-education center” for modesty classes last week. Three days later, she was dead.

The government has vehemently rejected responsibility for the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, but the news nonetheless galvanized thousands of Iranian women who have faced first-hand the wrath of the Islamic Republic’s morality enforcers for decades.

Amini’s story has brought Iran’s disciplinary apparatus back into the spotlight, raising the issue of accountability and impunity enjoyed by the country’s clerical elite.

“It would be difficult to find an average Iranian woman or an average family that does not have a history of interaction. [com a polícia da moralidade e os centros de reeducação],” said Tara Sepehri Far, senior researcher in the Middle East and North Africa division at Human Rights Watch. “That’s how they are present.”

The morality police is a law enforcement force with access to power, weapons and detention centers, she said. They also have control over newly introduced “re-education centres”.

The centers function as detention centers, where women – and sometimes men – are detained for failing to comply with state rules on modesty. Inside the facility, detainees are taught about Islam and the importance of the hijab (or headscarf), and are then forced to sign a pledge to comply with state dress regulations before being released.

The first of these establishments opened in 2019, said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran, adding that “since their creation, which has no basis in any law, agents of these centers have arbitrarily detained numerous women under the pretense of not complying with the state’s enforced hijab.”

“The women are then treated like criminals, arrested for their crime, photographed and forced to take a class on how to wear a proper hijab and Islamic morality,” he added.

Iran dictated to women how they should dress long before the establishment of the current Islamic Republic. In 1936, pro-Western ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi banned the wearing of all veils and head scarves in an effort to modernize the country. Many women resisted. Then, the Islamic regime that overthrew the Pahlavi dynasty made the hjiab mandatory in 1979, but the rule was only made law in 1983.

A task force with all the powers of a law enforcement agency, the morality police are tasked with ensuring that the rules are followed.

Various anti-hijab movements emerge every few years in Iran, often leading to waves of arrests and persecution. This includes the “Girls of Revolution Street” in 2017, as well as this year’s brief social media protests on the country’s National Day of Hijab and Chastity, which is observed annually on July 12 to promote the wearing of the veil.

But disagreements arose on the issue of mandatory hijab, both among citizens and within the leadership.

A survey carried out in 2018 by a research center linked to parliament showed that there has been a decrease in the number of people who believe that the government should apply the headscarf. And a 2014 report by the Iranian Students News Agency showed a 15% increase in those who believe the hijab should not be mandatory.

There has also been a rhetorical shift among the country’s leadership, calling for “education” and “correction” as opposed to the forced implementation of Islamic values, says researcher Sepehri Far.

Some say Iran is slowly approaching a tipping point as the government grapples with growing discontent with a stalled economy and skyrocketing inflation caused by US sanctions.

Amini’s death appears to be uniting different-minded Iranians, says Sepehri Far, adding that criticism of the incident comes not only from opponents of the regime, but also from citizens with no previous history of dissent, as well as those close to power.

Thousands across Iran took to the streets on Tuesday night, according to witnesses and social media footage.

Videos on social media showed a woman cutting her hair in protest as the crowd chanted “death to the dictator” in Iran’s southeastern Kerman province. In other parts of the country, protesters chanted “We are children of war, come and fight, we will fight back” and “death to Khamenei”.

“This time, the protesters are not just calling for justice for Mahsa Amini,” Ghaemi said. “They also cry out for women’s rights, for their civil and human rights, for a life without religious dictatorship.”

While there is a sense that the regime may feel vulnerable, some question whether the current movement will expand or simply weaken in the face of state repression.

“Not only are these protests brutally suppressed and contained each time, but there is also no leadership,” said Tara Kangarlou, author of “The Heartbeat of Iran,” who grew up under the gaze of the morality police.

“Growing up as a teenager, we made sure to avoid streets where we knew moral police vans would be parked over the weekend,” Kangarlou said.

She says young Iranians have evolved within the “oppressive system” to live their lives, but the “average Iranian is fed up”.