A screed of lead falls on Iran. While the anniversary date the death of Mahsa (Jina) Amini (September 16, 2022) – it had been the starting point of the biggest uprising in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran –, still seems distant, the regime, fearing already new demonstrations, has been engaged for a few weeks in a wave of repression which affects all the symbols of the already stifled protest.
Across the country, owners of cars in which a woman is not wearing a headscarf are being ordered to report to a Moral Safety Police station. The car is then sent to the pound. The women thus arrested are photographed and forced to sign a letter in which they undertake not to move around bareheaded. In case of recidivism, they are sent before a judge and incur a prison sentence.
On June 14, Iranian police spokesman Said Montazerolmahdi announced that since mid-April, two thousand cars had been stopped for not respecting the wearing of the hijab by a woman on board. More than three hundred people were arrested. The morality police, responsible for enforcing dress laws in Iran, whose members are behind the death of Mahsa Amini, are not yet officially back on the streets of Iran; violators of the obligation to travel wearing a veil are detected by cameras originally intended to monitor traffic or by plainclothes agents. A warning SMS is then sent to the car owner.
Soheila (a pseudonym to protect the person concerned), a resident of the city of Mashhad (North-East), has decided, like a large number of Iranian women, to no longer cover her hair since September 2022, in sign of protest against the Islamic Republic as a whole. Since March, she has received several warning text messages, each time informing her of the place, date and time she was taken into custody. ” in the act “ non-compliance with the law on the compulsory wearing of the hijab. In the third, it was indicated that she would soon be contacted with a view to having her vehicle impounded.
frighten, threaten, put under pressure
Soheila decided to report to the Moral Safety Police station, where her car was impounded for a week. “At the station, there were ten of us who received the same message. Those who were supposed to take care of our files missed no opportunity to humiliate us. They told us: “We don’t want to take care of you. We’re going to do what we want with you and you have no choice but to wait. Our goal is that you no longer dare to go out without a veil.reports Soheila.
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