After protest crackdown, Iran’s morality police return to enforce Islamic dress code

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iranian authorities announce a new campaign to force women to wear the Islamic headscarf, and morality police return to the streets, 10 months after the death of a woman in their custody sparked nationwide protests.

The morality police had largely pulled back following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini last September, as authorities struggled to contain mass protests calling for the overthrow of the theocracy that has ruled Iran for over four decades.

The protests largely died down earlier this year following a heavy crackdown in which over 500 protesters were killed and nearly 20,000 detained. But many women continued to flaunt the official dress code, especially in the capital, Tehran, and other cities.

The morality police were only rarely seen patrolling the streets, and in December, there were even some reports — later denied — that they had been disbanded.

Authorities insisted throughout the crisis that the rules had not changed. Iran’s clerical rulers view the hijab as a key pillar of the Islamic revolution that brought them to power, and consider more casual dress a sign of Western decadence.

Today, Gen. Saeed Montazerolmahdi, a police spokesman, says the morality police would resume notifying and then detaining women not wearing a hijab in public. In Tehran, the men and women of the morality police can be seen patrolling the streets in marked vans.