Gasht-e Ershad | The vice and virtue squad
Protests broke out in Iran and women took to the streets following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police back in September.
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Triggered by anger over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of Iran’s morality police back in September, women hit the streets and led a wave of mass anti-government protests that spiralled into one of the biggest challenges to the theocratic regime since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Protests reverberated widely. Hijab once again took centre stage to emerge as a symbol of defiance against the imposition of the veil and the Gasht-e Ershad (guidance patrol), commonly known as morality police, responsible for enforcing the strict Islamic dress code.
After around three months of unrest that left over 400 dead, reports claimed that Iran’s Attorney-General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri had hinted at the suspension of the morality police. The spokesperson for Iran’s headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, which oversees the implementation of religious edicts, remarked that the era of the morality police was over. There was, however, no confirmation from the Interior Ministry that runs the squad. Protesters and activists called it hogwash and insisted that there has been no change to restrictive dress rules for women in the country.
Hijab has been an integral part of Iranian politics since the 20th century. In 1936, modernist Reza Shah Pahlavi issued a decree to ban all Islamic veils and headscarves. Women could dress as per their wishes. Then the Islamic Revolution shook Iran.
A familiar sight
Four years after the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini established the Islamic rule of Iran and introduced Sharia. In 1983, he made hijab mandatory for all women, irrespective of nationality or religion. Though the clerical leadership was strictly enforcing the rules, a formal force called Gasht-e Ershad was established during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “spread the culture of modesty and hijab”. Under the Sharia that governs Iran, women have to cover their hair and wear loose-fitting clothes. Iranian women are prohibited from wearing shorts, ripped jeans, or any other clothing that exposes the shape of their bodies, according to generally acceptable guidelines.
The morality police began patrolling in 2006 and have since been a familiar sight. The role of the units evolved, but the force was primarily tasked to uphold modesty laws and detain those violating the conservative dress code to “promote virtue and prevent vice”. A crew would wait in public spaces and scan for ‘violators’.
The morality police initially only issued warnings to women, but were later empowered to make arrests for moral code violations even for minor offences like showing a few strands of hair from under the hijab. They were released only after a male relative’s assurances.
Over the years, the force has come under heavy criticism for violation of basic rights. It was a controversial issue even for those running for the presidency. Two Presidents, Mohammad Khatami in 1997 and Hassan Rouhani in 2013, promised reform but failed. During the 2009 presidential elections, the need for such a force was debated with reformist candidates calling for its dissolution. They wished for hijab to be a choice and not a compulsion. There was, however, no substantial change.
In July this year, Iran attempted to reinforce the law. President Ebrahim Raisi called for the mobilisation of “all state institutions to enforce the headscarf law” by the use of surveillance tools to monitor and punish unveiled women.
The death of Amini, a Kurdish Iranian, put the morality police back in the global spotlight. The world questioned its conduct for policing women’s bodies. The UN imposed sanctions on the force and senior security officials for engaging in “serious human rights abuses”. Amid outrage, senior Iranian officials also demanded an investigation.
Uncertainty remains over Iran’s morality police, but activists maintain that not much will change for women even if the Guidance Patrol is abolished since Islamic laws still hold that the hijab is mandatory for women. Meanwhile, protests continue in Iran, deepening the internal crisis.
(With inputs from Priyali Prakash)
