Protests in Iran have been raging for a while, mostly because of the restrictive laws regarding women that the Islamic Regime has published after the Islamic revolution in 1979. One major law is that women need to wear hijabs or headscarves and modest, loose-fitting clothing to maintain their modesty and privacy from men. This was pretty relaxed because oftentimes, women would wear veils with some of their hair showing, but right now, it is a huge problem.
Four years after the revolution that brought Iran's conservatives to power, the Islamic Republic officially established the obligation for women to cover their hair in legislation in 1983. Based on who was in charge, this level of enforcement fluctuated over time. Right now, the morality police have gained an extreme amount of authority.
The morality police in Iran is an organization formally established in 2005, but before then, it was known as the Islamic Revolution Committees: now it is known as the Gasht-e Ershad, or Guidance Patrol. Everyday, they drive around Iran in green and white vans and act as a religious crime patrol squad enforcing dress codes and laws.
There have been many peaceful protests in Iran against how women are required to cover up, but the morality police have often answered very violently, by arresting, injuring, and even killing protesters. To further weaken the protests, authorities have restricted internet access, including blocking social media.
On September 16th, Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was visiting Tehran with her brother to see her relatives, died because she was violating the dress code. She was traveling by a train and when she got off, the police grabbed her into a van and told her brother that they were taking her to a re-education class all because of her hijab. Her brother, who was very worried, went straight to the detention center where she was being held and heard screams coming from inside. He started to bang on the door but the police came out with batons and tear gas and attacked her brother. Later, there was an ambulance coming, which was supposed to take a police officer to the hospital, but a woman inside told him a girl was killed. Her brother was terrified that the girl was his sister, so he ran to the hospital, but security was surrounding him, so he couldn’t see her. After a while when he did see his sister, the doctors had claimed she was in a coma and was braindead. Authorities published a blurry video inside the detention center, which depicted Mahsa Amini falling and they said that she died of a heart attack, but would not publish a video of her inside the van.
Once this story was released, protests spread like wildfire, especially where frustrations have been held for years. Protests were met with fire and arrests. Many women demanded justice for Amini and burned their veils publicly or cut their own hair. Even young girls are marching around the streets chanting “woman, life, freedom”. Amini is not the first woman to die this way. Nika Shakarami, who was seventeen, disappeared after protesting. After a week, police released her dead body. Her nose was smashed and her skull was broken from many blows. All of these women who have died under the custody of the police have only fueled the fire, as younger generations are joining the protest. There are also videos of girls that have been taking off their hijabs and have been waving them in the air. In Karaj, a city on the outskirts of Tehran, girls have chased an education official out of their school saying “If we don’t unite, they will kill us one by one.”
Right now, the stories of the protestors and the protests in Iran are being spread all over the world. The morality police there continue to arrest, injure, and kill women as you read this article. Spread this message and educate yourself with what is going on in Iran and the world, because these problems will only ever become bigger as time goes on.