According to state television, Iranian police on Sunday resumed patrols in an effort to apprehend the growing number of women who disobey a rigorous dress rule by wearing their hair out in public.
The report comes exactly ten months after Mahsa Amini’s death while in police custody on September 16, 2016, which sparked widespread demonstrations and caused the morality police to largely vanish from the streets as more and more women broke the law.
The morality police had detained Amini, an Iranian-Kurd, for allegedly breaking the dress code, which mandates that women cover their heads and necks in public.
Authorities have taken other steps to uphold the law as the morality police retreated. These included putting cameras in public areas to find offenders and closing down companies whose employees violate the guidelines.
However, the conventional strategy will be retested beginning on Sunday, according to official media.
“The police will launch car and foot patrols to warn, take legal measures, and refer to the judiciary those who disobey police orders and disregard consequences of dressing against the norms,” the official IRNA news agency quoted police spokesman Saeed Montazer Almehdi as saying.
Women who had their heads exposed were being reprimanded and arrested by female police officers wearing all-black chadors, as seen in photographs posted online. AFP was unable to independently confirm the veracity of the pictures.
Since the Islamic revolution of 1979, the dress code has been in effect. Offenders risk fines or two-month jail sentences.
But Iran’s reformist newspaper Shargh reported on Sunday that four women have received additional punishment including attending “psychological classes”, and driving bans.
During the months of protest, which Tehran generally labelled as foreign-instigated “riots”, thousands of Iranians were arrested and hundreds killed including dozens of security personnel.
Iran’s conservatives, who dominate the country’s parliament and leadership, have passionately defended the dress code but, with many Iranians demanding change, in May the judiciary and the government proposed a “Support for the Culture of Hijab and Chastity” bill, which sparked heated debate within the country.
