Status: 09/19/2022 03:56 a.m
Criticism is mounting in Iran following the death of a young woman in the custody of the vice squad. She had been arrested for not wearing her headscarf according to the rules.
Just over a year ago, the ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi took over as President of Iran. There is great fear that the vice squad will tighten clothes controls. But nothing happened. Women are letting the headscarf slip further and further back, sometimes wearing it more as a neckerchief. Under open blouses that no longer even reach over the buttocks, some even wear cropped shirts with a large neckline and tight pants. At the beginning of the summer, the moral police suddenly took action.
Reports of rigorous controls in western-style coffee shops, for example, are piling up on the Internet. Women who are not dressed properly are taken into police custody – like Mahsa Amini last Tuesday. A young Tehran woman told Reuters news agency: “My voice trembles when I talk about it because it’s happened to me once or twice. I thought, how would my parents feel if something like that happened to me?”
As the student speaks, her eyes dart nervously from left to right, presumably to see if anyone is watching.
“Death to the Dictator”
Mahsa’s family claims she died from police beatings. There are numerous protests over the weekend. At a Tehran university they shout: “Woman, life, freedom.” In the hometown of 22-year-old Amini in south-west Iran, many, allegedly thousands, are also demonstrating on the outskirts of her funeral.
In a video on Twitter, women can be seen waving their headscarves in the air. Along with numerous other demonstrators, they shout “Death to the dictator”. In other Twitter videos, women cut their hair and burn headscarves in protest. A manager of an Iranian fashion company posts that headscarves will no longer be produced in the future.
Raisi condoles
Meanwhile, Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi denied the allegations: “We have no report that the regulators beat this woman. We are aware of this incident, whether it happened or not. Basically, the vice squad have no means to strike . That means she has no batons or other means.”
The state news agency IRNA writes that the Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi called Mahsa Amini’s family yesterday and expressed his condolences. He ordered an investigation into the case. According to the Minister of the Interior, there