The video is brutal: Nafas H., just 14 years old, is dragged into a minibus by figures in long, black robes. The morality police arrested the girl and her friend of the same age in the Iranian capital Tehran; their crime: they were not wearing a headscarf.
In the Islamic Republic, the headscarf is required by law, but the sometimes violent actions of the morality police against violations are more than controversial. This is shown by the reactions to the video on the internet: “How long do you need to understand that this policy of Islamic dress code has failed and only leads to more discontent among the population?” wrote Asar Mansuri, the chairwoman of the reform party Ettehad Mellat, on X with regard to the leadership of the country.
On social media, the video even overshadowed the news about the threat of war and confrontation with arch-enemy Israel. The Islamic system should be ashamed of treating a child like this, wrote many users. “You don’t have the courage to attack Israel, but you do have the courage to attack a young girl,” was one comment on X.
The new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, was also called to account. During the election campaign, he had criticized the checks carried out by the morality police and promised to stop them immediately. Instead of leading the country into war “because of an Arab” – he means Hamas’ foreign chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was deliberately killed in Iran last week, for which Tehran has promised retaliation against Israel – the president should protect young girls in his own country, it was widely read.
Mother wants to sue
The incident occurred in July. The video, which was recorded by traffic police cameras, only went viral on Wednesday night. The girl’s mother now wants to sue the morality police. Her daughter was injured by the morality police and had to be treated in hospital. “She’s still a child, what is the point of this brutality?” the mother told the news portal Tejarat-News.
Since the women’s movement in September 2022, the Islamic system and its morality police have taken a tougher approach to controlling Islamic dress codes. Women without headscarves are initially warned. If they ignore the warnings, they are arrested and taken to the police station.
The protests were triggered by the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini. She was arrested by the vice squad because a few strands of hair were visible under her headscarf. She died in police custody.
(agencies, ep)
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07.08.2024, 11:49
