Iranian authorities say they’ll be installing cameras in public places and thoroughfares to track down and punish women who don’t wear head coverings.
In a move aimed at “preventing resistance against the hijab law,” violators who are identified will initially receive “warning text messages as to the consequences,” police said Saturday in a statement distributed by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency and other state media.
The statement claimed such resistance tarnishes the country’s spiritual image and spreads insecurity.
It was released on the heels of a growing number of Iranian women dumping their veils since the September death of Mahsa Amini, an aspiring 22-year-old lawyer arrested by Iran’s morality police for allegedly wearing her hijab in a way that made some of her hair visible.
Three days later, she was dead.
Eyewitnesses said she was beaten to death in police custody.
Authorities claimed she died of heart failure.
Amini’s death sparked months of anti-government protests.
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The morality police — known formally as the Gasht-e Ershad or “Guidance Patrol” — were established in 2006 by hardline former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “spread the culture of modesty” and enforce rules requiring woman to wear “hijab” head coverings.
Saturday’s police statement called on business owners to “seriously monitor the observance of societal norms with their diligent inspections”.
Under Iran’s Islamic sharia law, imposed following the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes disguising their figures.
Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest.
Describing the veil as “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” an Interior Ministry statement on March 30 said there would be no retreat on the issue.
It urged citizens to confront unveiled women.
With Post wires
