Islamic Dress Code - Iran: Moral police act causes outrage
A video on social media has sparked outrage and indignation in Iran. It shows the morality police roughly dragging the underage Nafas H. into a police car in the capital, Tehran. The 14-year-old and her similarly aged friend, who was also arrested, were not wearing a headscarf.
In the Islamic Republic, the headscarf is mandatory by law, but the morality police's often violent approach to enforcing this is a contentious issue. "How much longer will it take for you to understand that this policy of Islamic dress code has failed and only leads to more dissatisfaction among the population?" wrote Asar Mansuri, the chairwoman of the reform party Ettehad Mellat, on the X platform, addressing the country's leadership.
The video even overshadowed news about the threat of war and confrontation with the arch-enemy, Israel. Many users on social media criticized the Islamic system for treating a child in this manner. "You have no courage to attack Israel, but you do against a young girl," read one comment on X.
President should focus on protecting girls in his own country
The new president, Massud Peseschkian, was also called to account. During his election campaign, he had criticized the controls of the morality police and promised to stop them immediately. Instead of leading the country into war "because of an Arab" - referring to the Hamas foreign chief Ismail Haniyeh, who was targeted and killed in Iran last week, with Tehran announcing retaliation against Israel - the president should protect the young girls in his own country, many wrote.
The incident occurred last month, but the video, recorded by traffic police cameras, only went viral in the early hours of Wednesday. The girl's mother plans to sue the morality police. Her daughter was injured by the morality officers and had to be treated in hospital. "She's still a child, what is 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 harder line in enforcing Islamic dress codes. Women not wearing a headscarf are initially warned. If they do not comply, they are arrested and taken to the police station.
The protests were sparked by the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini. She was arrested by the morality police for having a few strands of hair showing under her headscarf and later died in police custody.
The European Union expressed concern over the treatment of the 14-year-old girl by the morality police in Iran, emphasizing the importance of respecting human rights. The European Union's foreign policy chief stated, "We urge the Iranian authorities to uphold the principles of justice and equality, particularly towards vulnerable groups such as children and women."
In response to the outrage caused by the video, several European countries considered imposing sanctions on Iran, citing its violation of international human rights laws and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
