Iran police taking softer line on Islamic codes

Iranian police are taking a softer approach to breaches of Islamic rules, opting for education over punishment, Tehran’s police chief says.

“According to a decision of the commander of the police force, those who do not observe Islamic codes will no longer be taken to detention centers nor judicial files opened on them,” Brigadier General Hossein Rahimi says in a speech in the Iranian capital.

“We offer courses and 7,913 people have been educated in these classes so far,” he says, adding that there were more than 100 counseling centers in Tehran province.

Rahimi, who was appointed in August, does not elaborate on which Islamic codes were in question or when the new guidelines were introduced.

It marks a stark shift from his predecessor, General Hossein Sajedinia, who announced in April 2016 that there were 7,000 undercover morality police reporting on things like “bad hijab” — a blanket term usually referring to un-Islamic dress by women.

Figures are rarely given, but Tehran’s traffic police said in late 2015 they had dealt with 40,000 cases of bad hijab in cars, where women often let their headscarves drop around their necks.

These cases generally led to fines and temporary impounding of the vehicle, the spokesman said at the time.

— AFP