The spokesman for the interior ministry reports that last year, 593,590 people received warnings from Morality Police patrols regarding hijab and how they dress in public.
Hosseinali Amiri told IRNA that 3,572 of these cases were referred to the judiciary for legal proceedings. Amiri said that burdening young people with police files early on in their lives cannot have positive social effects in the long run. Such actions, according to Amiri, affect young people’s future employment opportunities.
Amiri added that these kinds of enforcement campaigns do not in any way promote effective compliance with hijab but rather encourage a superficial compliance to avoid the police.
Extremist groups such as Ansar-e Hezbollah and Basij forces have become more vocal and active about enforcing hijab in public. This appears to be a backlash against the more progressive policies of the Rohani administration and President Rohani’s call for moderation.
