State media claimed on Sunday that morality police in Iran will start patrols to ensure that women adhere to rigid Islamic dress standards, ten months after the death of a young lady in their care sparked widespread protests.
Police will resume car and foot patrols around the nation starting on Sunday, according to Saeid Montazeralmahdi, a spokeswoman for Iran’s enforcement agency, Faraja, the state-run Fars news agency reported.
Officers would first issue warnings to women who are disobeying before taking legal action against those who “insist on breaking the norms,” the officer stated.
The morality police were cast into the international spotlight in September last year, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died three days after being arrested by the force for wearing her hijab, or headscarf, incorrectly and taken to a “re-education” center.
Her death sparked nationwide protests that rocked the country, posing one of the biggest domestic threats to Iran’s ruling clerical regime in more than a decade.
Authorities responded violently to suppress the months-long movement, during which witnesses said the morality police had virtually disappeared from the streets of Tehran.
Iran executed at least 582 people last year, a 75% increase on 2021, according to human rights groups who say the rise reflects an effort by Tehran to instill fear among anti-regime protesters.
The morality police have access to power, arms and detention centers and control over “re-education centers,” Human Rights Watch told CNN last year. The group is sanctioned by the United States and the European Union.
The centers act like detention facilities, where women – and sometimes men – are taken into custody for failing to comply with the state’s rules on modesty.
Inside the facilities, detainees are given classes about Islam and the importance of the hijab, and are forced to sign a pledge to abide by the state’s clothing regulations before they are released.