The death of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Iran’s morality police in Tehran has ignited nationwide anger.
THE DEATH of a young woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Iran’s morality police in Tehran has ignited nationwide anger.
Here are some facts about the morality police, known as the Gashte Ershad or guidance patrols, tasked with detaining people who violate Iran’s conservative dress code in order to “promote virtue and prevent vice”:
– The morality police, attached to Iran’s law enforcement, are tasked with ensuring the respect of Islamic morals as described by the country’s top clerical authorities.
– The typical unit consists of a van with a mixed male and female crew that patrols or waits at busy public spaces to police non-proper behaviour and dress.
– People apprehended by the morality police are either given a notice or, in a few cases, taken to “correctional facilities” or a police station where they are lectured on how to dress or act morally before being released to their male relatives.
– Fines are sometimes given, although there is no general rule about pecuniary punishment.
– In Islam, hijab refers to what is deemed modest attire. Under Iran’s sharia, or Islamic law, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures.
– Decades after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, clerical rulers still struggle to enforce the law, with many women of all ages and backgrounds wearing tight-fitting, thigh-length coats and brightly coloured scarves pushed back to expose plenty of hair.
– The morality police are often made up of and backed by the Basij, a paramilitary force initially mobilised to fight in the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s.
– Basij have a presence in every Iranian university to monitor people’s dress and behaviour as higher learning is where Iranian male and females meet for the first time in a mixed educational environment.
HISTORY
– The fight against “bad hijab” is as old as the Islamic Revolution, which has erected the conservative dressing of women as one of its pillars.
– Over the revolution’s early years, the state gradually imposed rules to enforce the wearing of Islamic attire by women.
– Buoyed by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s claims in favour of hijab after the Shah’s fall, revolutionaries took it upon themselves to enforce their leader’s positions by attacking unveiled women in the streets and shouting “Woman, wear a veil or eat my hand”.
– Following several circulars shared by high clerics and ministers, unveiled women were no longer allowed in public buildings and the non-wearing of the veil became punishable by 74 lashes after a 1983 law.
– Iran’s revolutionary state struggled to control self-styled elements such as the Jundallah group patrolling streets to “combat bad hijab” and decided to institutionalise a morality police.
– Under reformist President Mohammad Khatami, state fervour to control dressing and behaviour in public spaces subsided but at the end of his term in 2005, the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution adopted the resolution named “strategies to develop a culture of chastity”.
– Under Khatami’s successor, the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the morality police took their current Persian name of Guidance Patrols (Gasht e Ershad) and increased their presence in the streets of Iran’s large cities.
– The need for a morality police was subsequently debated in the 2009 presidential elections, with reformist candidates calling for the dissolution of the force. However, no action has so far been taken to remove the morality police with many videos shared online of their sometime heavy-handed approach.
THE DEATH OF MAHSA AMINI
Amini, 22, from Iran’s Kurdistan province, fell into a coma and died after her arrest in Tehran last week by the morality police for “unsuitable attire”, sparking nationwide anger and demonstrations against the authorities in numerous areas, including the capital.
The protests spread on Monday, with the most intense in the Kurdish region. Kurdish human rights group Hengaw said three people were killed there on Monday when security forces opened fire, revising down a previous tally of five dead.
Reuters could not independently verify the report, and there was no official confirmation of the fatalities.
Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s representative in the Kurdistan province, Abdolreza Pourzahabi, paid a two-hour visit to Amini’s family home on Monday, the semi-official Tasnim news agency said, citing comments from Pourzahabi that were also reported by the state news agency.
Pourzahabi told Amini’s family “all institutions will take action to defend the rights that were violated” and that he was sure Khamenei was “also affected and pained” by her death.
“I hope that with this sympathy and your family’s good faith, the trauma that has been suffered in the society will be corrected,” Pourzahabi said he told the family.
“As I promised to the family of Ms Amini, I will also follow up the issue of her death until the final result.”
The police have said Amini fell ill as she waited with other women held by the morality police. But her father has repeatedly said his daughter had no health problems, adding that she had suffered bruises to her legs. He held the police responsible for her death.
In the nationwide condemnations of Amini’s death, the Persian hashtag #MahsaAmini has reached over three million Twitter mentions.
Videos posted on social media have shown demonstrations in numerous cities, with women waving their headscarves and protesters facing off with security forces.
Protesters marched through Tehran’s Grand Bazaar on Monday chanting “Mahsa Amini, Rest in Peace”, according to a video posted by the widely-followed 1500tasvir Twitter account, which publishes footage it says it receives from the public.
In one large protest in Tehran, a crowd of demonstrators wearing black shouted “Oh the day when we will be armed”, according to another video posted by 1500tasvir overnight.
Reuters has been unable to verify the videos.
Sanam Vakil of the Chatham House think tank said the protests speak to “a deep sense of popular anger, directly connected to the very tragic death of Mahsa Amini, but also shed light on the groundswell of issues that ordinary Iranians face every day related to security, freedom”.
Though the protests were significant, she added: “I don’t think this is an existential challenge to the regime … because the system in Iran has a monopoly of force, a well-honed security strategy that it is already implementing.”
ARRESTS
The governor of Tehran accused protesters of assaulting police and destroying public property during the protests. In the northern province of Gilan, police arrested 22 people for destroying public property, the deputy police commander said.
In the Kurdish region of north-western Iran, the rights organisation Hengaw said there were protests in 13 cities on Monday and that 250 people had been arrested.
Hengaw gave the names of three people who it said had been killed during protests in three different cities, including Amini’s hometown of Saqez. Hengaw said a person previously identified as dead was in fact wounded.
The United States on Monday demanded accountability, saying Amini died “after injuries sustained while in police custody for wearing an ‘improper’ hijab”. France also condemned her arrest, “and the violence that caused her death”.
On Monday, the Tehran police commander described her death as an “unfortunate” incident, while rejecting what he said were “cowardly accusations” against the police.
– REUTERS
