Faridé got off the bus a few minutes ago near the Valiasr roundabout, in the heart of Tehran. She goes to the studio where she works and, like a few women who walk the streets at midday, she has let her veil fall back. Her hair has been exposed, painted blue, which she wears at the height of her neck. He does not go unnoticed; an older woman, dressed in a strict black chador, approaches her and talks to her for a few minutes.
“I thought he was going to recriminate me, but he told me that before the revolution it was common to see women like me, without a veil. That was normal then, ”says Faridé, 35, when I ask him what has happened. "She has told me to be careful, that she doesn't want the police to take women to jail." This scene may seem strange, but it is no exception. There are traditional women who would never take off their hijab – or even their chador – have long been expressing the need for peaceful coexistence among those who defend other models of living. They even criticize the way the morality police act, but this will is not shared at the top of the Nizam who, since the victory of the revolution in 1979, has put the veil on the center of the defense of the Islamic Republic.
Many young women who decide to dress more laxly are harassed by religious women who share the Islamic Republic's idea that they should be covered. They scold them, demand that they cover up and often report them to the police. On Friday, hundreds of women who share that way of thinking went to a pro-government march. But the determination of a large part of the young women is greater than fear.
Moments before the meeting with Faridé, on Thursday morning, another young woman with her veil dropped defiantly pushed her way between two chador-clad women. She passed them and kept walking defiantly. It was obvious that she wanted to send a message. “Our outrage has found common ground with Mahsa's murder and our rage has suddenly exploded. As well as our desire to do something,” says Pegah, a 25-year-old accounting student. For her, the imposition of the veil and the pressure to use it is a political and not a religious issue.
“Religion does not say that women should be afraid in the street or that they should be persecuted for how they dress. That is not religion,” she says. The tension in the streets of the main cities of Iran, but especially in Tehran, has been increasing for months, especially since the arrival to the presidency of Ebrahim Raisi, when the repression to control women's clothing intensified. Fines and arrests skyrocketed.
The morality police have existed for decades and their presence is part of the urban landscape of Tehran and the big cities. But in recent months it has been more active. The number of women detained under the excuse that they have to undergo a re-education course has skyrocketed. “The street is an unsafe place for us, especially those of us who use public transport. They are always at the exit of the subway”, explains Marzieh, a 55-year-old woman who works taking care of an older woman. She has been arrested three times in these years, but the last time they did it despite wearing the veil well.
Najmeh, a 40-year-old executive, says that the pressure has reached the airport. A few weeks ago she was traveling to Istanbul, she was about to pass the security controls and a policeman rebuked her. She told him that she had to dress differently or he wouldn't let her on the plane. "I was covered in a long white shirt and a pink veil, all very normal." In the end, she managed to get another passenger to lend her a raincoat and she was able to travel. "Can you imagine my outrage?"
The tentacles of the morality police extend to private vehicles. The cameras that control the speed also have the task of capturing the image of the passengers. The vehicle that transports a woman with her veil down, receives a message. The owner of the vehicle has to go to the police station to sign a paper that guarantees that it will never happen again. If it relapses, the vehicle ends up confiscated; recovering it takes days or weeks. A well-known lawyer from Tehran recently complained that her car was damaged when she received it and to repair it cost her a few hundred euros.
“You never know what is going to happen when we go out on the street, I have been arrested several times and taken to the police station, even when my head was covered with a veil,” explains Faridé, the young woman with blue hair, who assures that the reasons for the arrests are arbitrary. “When they want to arrest you, they look for an excuse,” she adds. Faridé knows that she is taking a great risk this morning, there are plainclothes officers everywhere. And she can be easily arrested.
The spirits in the street have become much more heated than they already were since the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, who, like Faridé, was walking through the center of Tehran on September 13. The young Kurdish woman – who had come to visit Tehran in the company of her brother – was detained by a morality police patrol. Two hours after being transferred to the Vozará police station, in the center of the city, she had to be rushed to a hospital that later assured in a statement that Mahsa arrived at the center brain dead.
The message posted on Instagram disappeared shortly after being posted. But it did not go unnoticed by anyone. The police argue that the young woman had a heart attack; they didn't hit her. They rely on a highly edited video in which the young woman looks in good condition, then she approaches a police officer with the gesture of claiming something and later she faints. This version has been countered by witnesses, who argue that Mahsa did not have any health problems, but that her body showed signs of beatings. President Raisi has promised an investigation.
“I have witnessed how women were beaten. Not when they were transferred in the van but within the same police station. I witnessed how they beat women who only asked why they were being arrested”, confesses this young woman. Years of arbitrariness committed by some security forces of the Islamic Republic, including the morality police, have led to part of the population not believing their versions.
Pegah, the accounting student, says that once she was walking when her hand was grabbed. "And they took me," says the young woman, who explains that the worst of all is the humiliation. "It's the way they look at you, how they talk to you, how they touch you... It takes weeks to get rid of that feeling of anger and indignation," says this young woman who wears very short hair, another sign of rebellion. Dozens of women have cut their hair in protest.
Violence against women in the streets has been a constant for years. In 2014, Marzieh Ebrahimi was attacked with acid while she was driving in Isfahan. Other women suffered the same fate. Many witnesses point to members of forces sympathetic to the regime as responsible, but there have never been any arrests. On social networks it is quite common to see videos in which it is seen how members of the morality police respond with violence during arrests.
"It's torture," says Fariba, 18 years old. She comes from a traditional family, she has never dropped the veil on her, but she was recently arrested. Her father had to pick her up at her police station and bring her a raincoat so that they would let her go. “It's horrible, they treat you like a criminal. They photograph you, they ask for your identity document; They make you sign a document promising you won't do it again." And she adds that the most serious thing is that this file can have negative consequences for the future. Whether to study or get a job.
“Every time I leave the house I am scared. But so do my parents, who don't know what can happen to me." Fariba's dream is to live without fear.
