The Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Republic of Iran's Police Force warns again about the hijab: We will not tolerate breaking the norm

The Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Republic's Police Force says he will deal with those who refuse to accept police officers' warnings about determining the type of clothing they should wear.

According to the Tasnim news agency, close to the Revolutionary Guards, Hossein Ashtari stated at a meeting at the Nowruz headquarters of the Isfahan Provincial Police Command: "The police are not opposed to people's happiness, but they will not tolerate violations of norms and will deal decisively with those who violate norms."

These words of the Commander-in-Chief of the Islamic Republic's Police Force come at a time when, in recent days, numerous images have been published by cyberspace users and reports by some civil rights watchdogs regarding "encounters between law enforcement and security forces and citizens participating in New Year celebrations in Kurdish regions of Iran."

Ashtari also announced the continuation of the practice of warning people who uncover their hijab, warning that those who do not accept these "warnings" will be dealt with. He said: "If some people want to defy the police, our officers will be forced to deal with them."

This is while the spread of opposition to "compulsory hijab" in Iran has intensified in recent months, and the severe punishments of protesters have not diminished the intensity of these protests.

Since July 2010, the observance of the "Islamic veil" has been mandatory for Iranian women in offices, and shortly after in 2013, under Article 102 of the Penal Code for all women, and later in 2014, under Article 141 of the Islamic Penal Code, this issue was officially criminalized, and now, according to the note to Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code, it can result in a punishment of up to two months in prison or 74 lashes. This is while the protests of some opponents of the mandatory veil have been met with much harsher punishments than the punishments defined, and some of them have been sentenced to long prison terms.

Warnings about dealing with those who do not comply with the mandatory veil are not a new issue, and have even been raised in various forms during the tenure of the current police chief. Hossein Ashtari had also said in February 2019: "People who uncover their hijab in cars will be dealt with legally because we believe that this inappropriate act is considered a violation of norms."

The lack of religious clothing is introduced in Iranian law as "non-hijab" and public opposition to "compulsory hijab" is declared in the literature of Islamic Republic officials as "unveiling the hijab." An issue that has existed for four decades but has become more intense and widespread in recent years.

The concern of many officials in the Islamic Republic about the spread of this phenomenon led a group of representatives of the Islamic Consultative Assembly to emphasize, in a written reminder to President Ebrahim Raisi and other Iranian executive officials, on March 23, 1402, the "need to address the undesirable situation of hijab and chastity."

The intensity of this concern has expanded to such an extent that it has even extended to the circle of the dead.

Referring to this concern, the CEO of Tehran's Behesht Zahra Cemetery announced on January 27, 2021, the creation of a "tombstone security team" to "prevent the installation of tombstones with unconventional and revealing images."

Source: Voice of America