UN Human Rights Committee calls for dismantling of Iran's "moral security police"

The United Nations Human Rights Committee, while expressing concern about the treatment of women and girls in Iran, called for the dissolution of the "moral security police" in Iran.

The United Nations Human Rights Council on Friday, November 3, 2019, while reviewing the human rights record in Iran, expressed concern about the Islamic Republic's treatment of women and girls and announced that the Islamic Republic should enact a comprehensive law that not only protects women and girls from all forms of violence, but also explicitly criminalizes domestic violence, marital rape, so-called honor crimes, and all forms of violence against women and girls.

The UN Human Rights Committee, noting that the police and Basij militia affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards enforce mandatory hijab laws using violence, stated: “A woman who does not wear a hijab may face harassment, arrest, fines and even imprisonment. Activists who have challenged the laws have also faced years in prison.”

"Iran must amend or repeal laws and policies that criminalize the failure to wear the mandatory hijab and disband the moral security police."

According to Reuters, the moral security police disappeared from the streets for a while after Mahsa Amini died due to forced hijab, but have now returned to the streets and installed surveillance cameras to identify and punish women who do not wear the hijab.

"Ezra Zia, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Civilian Security, Democracy, and Human Rights, also stated in a statement: "The Islamic Republic regime continues to severely restrict the exercise of human rights by Iranians and has increased surveillance and punishment of women and men who engage in civil disobedience. There are reports that the so-called morality police have returned to the streets of major Iranian cities and are suppressing women to enforce mandatory hijab laws, including arrests and other inhumane punishments."

Amnesty International, in a statement on social media, criticized the compulsory hijab in Iran as a tool for widespread and systematic violations of the human rights of women and girls. The organization also called on countries around the world to hold Iranian government officials accountable for ordering, planning, and committing widespread and systematic violations of the human rights of women and girls through the imposition of compulsory hijab.