Iran's morality police are back with new punishments for women who refuse to wear the hijab

Iran has redeployed its vice police to force women to wear the hijab Photo: Wahid Salemi/AP

Iran has redeployed its vice police who are forcing of women to wear the hijab, nearly a year after the death of a woman in police custody sparked nationwide protests.

The vice police largely stopped patrolling after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. last September, when authorities struggled to contain mass demonstrations that were one of the boldest challenges to Iranian theocracy since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Their reintroduction comes because many women continue to violate the country's strict clothing laws despite a crackdown on protests.

Virtual police officers in Tehran could be seen patrolling the streets in branded vans on Sunday.< /p>

Meanwhile, footage has surfaced on social media showing policewomen wearing black veils scolding and arresting bare-headed women.

As part of their attempt to deter Iranian women and girls from taking off their headscarves, Islamic Iran's rulers have also resorted to a series of draconian new measures in recent weeks.

Mahsa Amini became a symbol of protesters last year. Photo: NurPhoto/NurPhoto

On Friday, local media reported that a woman was arrested for breaking the law, jailed for two months, and forced to wash the bodies of dead women in the central city of Varamin.

Other women detained by police were reportedly told that they must visit a psychiatrist every two weeks for a minimum of three months to be examined.

The newspaper Etemad reported that they must be declared «free of antisocial behavior» before the end of the sessions.

While the vice police left, the authorities took other measures to enforce the law. These include the closure of businesses whose employees do not comply with the rules and the installation of cameras in public places to identify and punish women without a bare face.

It was reported that in the first verdict, based on CCTV footage, one woman was sentenced to two months in prison and a two-year travel ban last week.

She was also ordered to undergo mandatory medical examinations after a judge ruled in her case, said her behavior that violated clothing laws was a symptom of a «sickness» that «needs to be treated,» said the NGO Human Rights Defenders in Iran. .

General Said Montazer al-Mahdi, a police spokesman, said on Sunday that the vice police would resume detaining women seen without a hijab in public.

Severe crackdown on protesters

Mr Al-Mahdi said that President Ebrahim Raisi and religious groups demanded the return of forces after protests largely died down earlier this year due to a heavy crackdown by security forces that left more than 500 dead and almost 20 000 are detained.

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, has previously said that the number of women opposed to the mandatory wearing of the hijab in Iran is «very few and a handful.»

However, an official poll conducted in 2021 showed that more than 70% of Iranian women oppose being forced to wear the garment.

Last year's hijab battle quickly escalated into calls to overthrow Iran's clerical rulers, accused by many young protesters of corruption , repression and out of touch with reality.

The Iranian government accused the protests of a foreign conspiracy without providing evidence.

Ms. Amini was detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule, which applies to everyone women and girls over nine years old.