In recent weeks the Iranian police had announced “more severe” measures to force Iranian women to cover their heads and hair and surrender to the regime that wants them without rights or freedoms. So on the same day, last April 13, as its first attack against Israel, the regime launched a new wave of internal repression, ordering the police to arrest women accused of violating the rules on the correct use of the veil.
The challenge of the veil no longer warms us
francesca paci
April 16, 2024
As Reuters reports, that day Tehran police chief Abbasali Mohammadian went on TV to announce the new campaign: «Starting today, police in Tehran and other cities will take measures against those who violate the hijab law» . The repression of the Revolutionary Guards managed to put an end to months of protests and public demonstrations that began with the death of Mahsa Amini, a university student beaten to death in September 2002 in a barracks of the Gasht-e-Ershad, the moral police of the Islamic Republic. After Mahsa’s death, the first to take to the streets were the students, ready to symbolically burn their veils or cut their hair in public. Stopped with hundreds of arrests, convictions and persecutions, the attempted revolution of Iranian women has turned into a silent resistance movement: do not wear the veil, show your head uncovered at the risk of your life.
On social media, Reuters reports, several users have published images of the massive presence of the morality police in Tehran, with videos of officers violently arresting women they believe are dressed inappropriately, including plainclothes security forces intent on dragging young women inside the vans of the morality police. Iran International reports the testimonies of victims who tell of disturbing experiences of being approached by the so-called Iranian moral police, in some cases with sexual harassment. One woman said that the police forced her and other people to pay 100 million rials to avoid arrest, another said that after the arrest the police officer took a piece of paper out of his pocket and asked the woman to “deposit 120 million rials”, approximately 170 euros, into the account indicated on the card as a condition for her release. Three other women said that, after being arrested and handing over their belongings to police stations, upon release they discovered that their jewelery had been stolen. There are many cases of “confiscation” of mobile phones.
