Astonishing scenes from Iran are hitting the airwaves, despite an almost complete clamp-down on the Internet there. Anti-government demonstrators have been clashing with security forces since the September 16th death of Mahsa Amini at the hands of the country's official "morality police", for her alleged "improper" wearing of a hijab (meaning it was worn too loosely, and was therefore considered "immodest").
The state has shown blurry footage of a woman collapsing at a "re-education centre" from what they are calling a heart attack, but there is no proof that this is Ms. Amino, and relatives deny that the young 22-year old had any pre-existing heart condition.
In recent years, here have been occasional flare-ups of opposition to the autocratic theocratic regime in Iran, but nothing like on this scale. Stage-managed pro-government rallies can not disguise the extent of the hatred of Ebrahim Raisi increasingly hardline Islamic laws, including a recent clamp-down on the mandatory use of the hijab in the country (Afghanistan is the only other country that requires women to wear hijabs in public).
Women are leading the peaceful protests, but many men are also making their voices heard. Women are waving and burning their hijabs, with some cutting their hair in public. A line has clearly been crossed. The security forces have responded with mass arrests, water cannons and even live gun-fire. The state-controlled media say that 26 protesters have died over the last week, but the real figure is almost certainly much higher.
The events have thrown attention on the existence in Iran of the so-called "morality police", which sounds like a fictional entity out of George Orwell or Margaret Atwood. Technically called the Gasht-e-Ershad, or "Guidance Patrols", these are mixed teams of men and black-robed women who roam the country, tasked with detaining women who are improperly or immodestly dressed under the draconian rules of the Islamic Republic. These rules, in force in Iran since the Islamic Revolution of 1979, prescribe that women's hair should be fully covered by a hijab or headscarf, and that clothing should be long and loose-fitting to disguise their figures.
The rules, though, are notoriously vague, and subject to interpretation, and there have been many accusations of arbitrary detentions by the morality enforcers. At any rate, any contraventions result in women being physically forced into vehicles and trucked off to police stations and re-education centres, where what happens is largely unknown.
Iran is not the only Islamic country that boasts a morality police system to enforce religious and public morality - Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Nigeria and Sudan have similar agencies, and India has a system of vigilante groups that purport to protect Indian culture and enforce a code of morality in India - but it is probably the best developed and arguably the most oppressive.
So, if you are put in mind of The Handmaid's Tale, then you are not far wrong. How it is possible for such things to occur in the 21st century beggars belief. Despite (or maybe because of) the ultra-conservative Raisi's stiffening of the rules around clothing and an increased presence of the morality police in cities, there have been more and more criticisms of the laws, and even some religious women and some members of the Iranian Parliament have spoken out against them. The protests look set to continue, despite the heavy-handed government response, and many young women are now openly defying the laws, risking the attentions of the Gasht-e-Ershad.
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