Iran Forming Special Team to Deal With ‘Non-Veiling’

VOA – An Iranian city prosecutor has announced an agreement between the judiciary, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, and the so-called morality police to form a special force to deal with women who refuse to comply with compulsory veiling.

“Based on the memorandum of understanding between the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards, and the morality police of Isfahan province, teams will be formed to deal with the people who refuse to wear the hijab in public,” said Mohammad Mousaviyan, the city prosecutor of Isfahan, in announcing the agreement.

In a ceremony in Isfahan on Saturday, the prosecutor obliged trade unions to enforce compulsory veiling.

“Severe action will be taken against trade unions in the event of non-compliance by female employees or if they serve customers who do not wear hijab,” he said.

According to Iranian state media, he emphasized that “managers of institutions and organizations should be held accountable for providing services to violators who do not wear hijab.”

“This is considered an act of abandoning their job,” he said, indicating the judiciary had been “dealing with some offending managers and a judicial case has been filed against them.”

Many women in Iran have publicly opposed the mandatory hijab since the death last September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman who died while in the custody of the morality police. Amini had been detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule.

Security forces violently put down the protests following her death. According to a report by the Human Rights Activists News Agency in early January, 516 protesters have been killed, including 70 children.

The latest figures from the U.S.-based human rights monitor put the number of people arrested at more than 19,200, among them 687 students.

Even though women can be arrested if they are not wearing a hijab in public, they are widely seen without a head covering in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media.

Many women and girls continue to discard their veils in public and publish their photos and videos despite previous police threats.

Last week, the morality police, which is under the leader’s supervision, in a statement admitting the failure of the previous methods to impose the mandatory hijab, accused the parliament of laxity in legislation.