Iranian authorities announced a new campaign to force women to wear Islamic headscarves on Sunday and morality police returned to the streets 10 months after the death of a woman in their custody sparked nationwide protests.
The morality police had largely retreated following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last September, as authorities struggled to contain mass protests calling for the overthrow of the theocracy that has ruled Iran for more than four years. decades.
The protests largely subsided earlier this year after a heavy crackdown in which more than 500 protesters were killed and nearly 20,000 detained, according to Norway-based rights group Iran Human Rights. But many women continued to flaunt the official dress code, especially in the capital Tehran and other cities.
The morality police were rarely seen patrolling the streets, and in December there were even some reports, later denied, that they had been disbanded.
The authorities insisted during the crisis that the rules had not changed. Iran’s clerical rulers see the hijab as a key pillar of the Islamic revolution that brought them to power, and see more casual dress as a sign of Western decadence.
On Sunday, General Saeed Montazerolmahdi, a police spokesman, said the morality police would resume reporting and then detain women who do not wear hijabs in public. In Tehran, the men and women of the morality police could be seen patrolling the streets in marked vans.
On Saturday night, police arrested Mohammed Sadeghi, a relatively unknown young actor, in a raid on his home that he appears to have spread on social media. Earlier, he had posted a video in response to another video online showing a woman being detained by the morality police. “Trust me, if I see a scene like that, I could commit murder,” she said.
The website of the semi-official Hamshahri daily, affiliated with the Tehran municipality, said he was arrested for encouraging people to use weapons against police.
The battle over the hijab became a powerful rallying cry last fall, with women playing a prominent role in the protests. The demonstrations quickly turned into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s clerical rulers, whom the mostly young protesters accuse of being corrupt, repressive and out of touch. Iran’s government blamed the protests on a foreign conspiracy, without providing evidence.
Several Iranian celebrities joined the protests, including prominent directors and actors from the country’s celebrated film industry. Several Iranian actresses were detained after appearing in public without the hijab or expressing support for the protests.
In a recent case, actress Azadeh Samadi was banned from social media and ordered by a court to seek psychological treatment for “antisocial personality disorder” after turning up at a funeral two months ago wearing a cap on her head.
