Return Of ‘Morality Police’ To Streets Leaves Women Fearful But Defiant in Iran
New Age
Islam News Bureau
21 July 2023
• Return Of ‘Morality
Police’ To Streets Leaves Women Fearful But Defiant in Iran
• Arab League And US Work
To Elevate Women's Voices At Cop28 Summit In Dubai
• ‘The Hijab Is Mine':
Muslim Women Take Back Their Rights From US Law Enforcement
• Assam: Rahima Khatun
Shot Dead By Forest Officials After Returning To Evicted Land Due To Flooding
In Makeshift
Compiled by New Age Islam News Bureau
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/morality-police-iran/d/130270
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Return Of ‘Morality Police’ To Streets
Leaves Women Fearful But Defiant in Iran
"Our
girls are fighting and know that there is no way back for us and we are not
going back, and our answer to them wanting to forcibly put a hijab on us is,
'No!'" one women's rights activist in Tehran said.
------
July 21, 2023
By Mehdi Tahbaz
(RFE/RL) — The return of the so-called
morality police to the streets of major Iranian cities has brought back fear
and stress for women who choose to ignore the requirement that they wear the
hair-covering hijab. But it has also been met with resistance by men and women
alike, while lawmakers have questioned the effectiveness of the hard-line
approach to enforcing compliance.
Iranians who spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio
Farda said the presence of the morality police — officially known as “guidance
patrols” that usually include male officers and women wearing black chadors —
is not as visible as it was before the patrols were scaled back after
nationwide protests first broke out against the hijab law last autumn.
“Before, when we went on the street,
they had a stationary vehicle, or a vehicle that was moving on the street,”
Leila Mirghaffari, a women’s rights activist who lives in Tehran, told Radio
Farda on July 17, a day after the return of the morality police was announced.
“They haven’t yet dared to encroach like before. But they are present, mostly
in main squares.”
Mirghaffari described the decision to
redeploy the morality police, coming after the monthslong protests had largely
wound down, as a distraction aimed at creating “fear and terror” among the
population.
“It creates mental and emotional
problems for us. It’s stressful, and it occupies our thoughts and those of our
families,” Mirghaffari said. “When we want to leave home and come out to the
street, at any moment we may travel a route where morality police patrol and
are stationed to arrest people.”
Nevertheless, Mirghaffari and others
suggested, the patrols are largely ineffective and have even given new life to
resistance against the authorities’ efforts to enforce the country’s strict
Islamic dress code.
Some Tehran residents who spoke to Radio
Farda said that many women simply put on a hijab when they spot the morality
police before quickly removing them once out of sight. And in some cases where
women have been harassed or threatened by morality police, fellow citizens —
male and female alike — have pushed back.
Almost immediately after the authorities
announced on July 16 that the morality police patrols would resume, residents
of the northern city of Rasht took to the streets to protest an attempt to
arrest three women for allegedly violating the hijab requirement.
The situation reportedly escalated into
clashes between demonstrators and police, who used tear gas to disperse
protesters, some of whom were chanting against Iran’s clerical establishment.
“I really don’t know where they want to
get with this method, but in my opinion, if they want to continue this way,
confrontations will start again,” said a male Tehran resident who requested
anonymity while answering questions on WhatsApp.
“Personally, if I see them taking a girl
into a van, I will step forward and shout so as not to let them take them.
That’s how things are, and I think most people now are like me. They don’t want
the Mahsa incident to happen again and for another innocent girl to be killed.”
The death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in
September, soon after she was arrested for allegedly violating the hijab law,
sparked the nationwide protests that lasted months and prompted a crackdown
that led to the deaths of more than 500 people. Amini’s death became the cause
célèbre for thousands of women and men who took to the streets to show their
opposition to the hijab law.
Amid the protests, there were reports
that the authorities had disbanded the morality police, although other reports
indicated that they never really went away in some cities. But the issue also
prompted the clerical establishment, which views the hijab as key to its
interpretation of Islam, to introduce revisions to the country’s Chastity and
Hijab Law that would introduce stiffer penalties for noncompliance, including
up to three years in prison for repeat offenders.
While the hijab has been compulsory in
public for women and girls over the age of 9 since 1981, shortly after the 1979
Islamic Revolution ushered in the clerical establishment, the requirement is
often flouted, particularly in urban areas.
The Chastity and Hijab bill, which is
awaiting parliamentary approval, has been fodder for intense debate — with some
lawmakers saying it does not go far enough to make women comply with the hijab
requirement and others questioning the effectiveness of forcing women to
comply.
Following the announcement that the
morality police patrols would resume in many Iranian cities, lawmaker Vali
Esmaili, who heads the parliament’s social commission, said that the body would
unlikely be involved in the effort.
He also said that before resuming the
patrols, “we should first look at the state of society to see if such actions
have been effective in the past 43 years.”
The Chastity and Hijab bill also
proposes penalties, including the confiscation of automobiles, against drivers
or passengers of vehicles in which women are not in compliance with the hijab
requirement.
“When I’m driving, I have to wear a
hijab,” a woman who resides in Tehran told Radio Farda following the
redeployment of the morality police, explaining that she has had her vehicle
impounded four times for failing to wear the hijab. “But when I get out and
move away from the car, I take off my head scarf. Many times, I just put it in
my bag. Sometimes, when I see that the conditions are bad, I keep it around my
neck, but I am still without a hijab in the street.”
The woman said that she has not personally
seen any morality police since they returned to the streets of Tehran. But she
has heard eyewitness accounts of the presence of marked morality police
vehicles in the northern city of Shahriar, in Tehran Province, where she said
most women wear head scarves and those who do not could be seen without a hijab
not far from the morality police.
“There are the odd ones out who are
without a hijab, and they were 100 or 200 meters away from the morality
police,” she recalled being told of the current situation.
She said that even before the morality
police returned to the streets, her experience in dealing with them showed that
they were reluctant to enforce the hijab requirement.
“It’s pretty clear that they’re tired of
this matter, but it seems like they have orders from above,” she said.
That is far from the norm, according to
the activist Mirghaffari, who painted a dark picture of the morality police,
whose involvement in human rights violations has led to Western sanctions.
“The morality police are truly violent.
They are really repressive. They have no humanity,” said Mirghaffari, who added
that she has been arrested by the force several times. “The morality police are
really trained for savagery and for causing distress to the point that someone
like Mahsa Amini could be killed. And they have no fear at all.”
Others who spoke to Radio Farda were
incredulous that the authorities would reintroduce the morality police amid
public frustration over Iran’s dire economic situation.
“The issue is not the hijab. The real
issue is the terrifying inflation and high prices,” said the man who answered
questions by WhatsApp. “But they are only fixated on the hijab. They are
playing with everyone’s nerves, whether man or woman, whether with a hijab or
without, they are bothering everyone.”
The renewed protests, which included
women carrying placards bearing the “We won’t go back!” slogan that became
popular during anti-hijab demonstrations, suggests that efforts to force women
into compliance will be met with continued resistance.
“Look, our girls are fighting and know
that there is no way back for us and we are not going back, and our answer to
them wanting to forcibly put a hijab on us is, ‘No!'” said Mirghaffari. “This
is a big step we have taken to reach our other desires and we will never go
back.”
Written by Michael Scollon based on
reporting by Mehdi Tahbaz and other Radio Farda correspondents.
Source: eurasiareview.com
https://www.eurasiareview.com/21072023-iran-return-of-morality-police-to-streets-leaves-women-fearful-but-defiant/
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Arab League And US Work To Elevate
Women's Voices At Cop28 Summit In Dubai
Women tend
to be more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change than men. AFP
------
Jul 20, 2023
The Arab League and the US have agreed
to include “a diverse range” of women's voices at the coming Cop28 climate
summit in Dubai.
The commitment comes after Dr Sultan Al
Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and President-designate
of Cop28, announced last week that inclusivity would be a key pillar in his
country's plans for the major climate summit.
“We resolve to work to ensure that women
are economically empowered and engaged in decision-making processes,” the Arab
League's Secretary General Ahmed AboulGheit and US Secretary of State Antony
Blinken said in a joint-statement on Thursday following talks in Washington.
“We intend to work to ensure that Cop28
in Dubai, for the benefit of the process, includes a diverse range of women’s
voices.”
Earlier this month, a UN Women's conference
warned that women remain a minority in the climate change agenda, despite
historically experiencing higher vulnerability to climate change's impacts than
men.
Mr AboulGheit visited the State
Department on Wednesday for an inaugural strategic dialogue that covered a
range of topics including regional conflicts, climate change and tech
infrastructure.
The National confirmed that Mr Blinken
reiterated Washington's position against the bloc's re-engagement with Syrian
President Bashar Al Assad, and emphasised joint work on “encouraging a return
to civilian rule in Sudan”.
The wide-ranging talks marked a renewed
commitment from both parties to “increasing co-operation on mutually important
issues”.
“We strongly believe that our shared
commitment to investing in our peoples will reap dividends for the future
generations of all Arab League member states and the United States,” the joint
statement added.
Source: thenationalnews.com
https://www.thenationalnews.com/climate/cop28/2023/07/20/arab-league-and-us-work-to-elevate-womens-voices-at-cop28/
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'The Hijab Is Mine': Muslim Women Take
Back Their Rights From US Law Enforcement
20 July 2023
By Zainab Iqbal
AlaaMassri was just 18 years old when
she was arrested.
It was the summer of 2020. Hundreds of
thousands of people across the United States were protesting against the murder
of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man who was killed while being arrested for
allegedly using a counterfeit bill.
Massri helped organise some of the
protests in Miami, Florida. She proudly wore her hijab - as she had for the
past 12 years - grabbed a megaphone, marched, and demanded justice.
More than 10,000 people were arrested
during the George Floyd protests condemning racism and police brutality across
the US - and Massri was one of them.
But what set Massri's arrest apart from
the others was that she was asked to remove her hijab for the booking photo.
Massri explained to officers that the head covering was a religious obligation
and that she would not take it off. But no one listened. Instead, an officer
yanked the hijab off her head and the photo was taken.
Now Massri’s hijab-less picture was out
in cyberspace. The hair she had carefully hidden from the world began
circulating on social media, with people and spam accounts harassing her. Some
even tried to sell the mugshot for thousands of dollars.
“I felt naked. I felt completely
stripped of all control,” Massri told Middle East Eye while recalling what she
felt at that moment. "I felt so blatantly disrespected."
“[The hijab] is my protection. This is
something I cherish, and to have it just ripped and yanked off with no regard
or respect? It felt like all my power was gone.”
Massri’s story is just one of many.
There are no federal laws to protect a woman's right to continue wearing a
hijab when arrested, and no laws to prevent officers from removing it or asking
for it to be removed.
Considered to be obligatory in Islam,
the hijab is a head covering worn by Muslim women who choose to wear it. It can
be a symbol of modesty and privacy or cultural identity deeply rooted in
Islamic traditions. Many wear it around men who are not considered their
"mahram" - a male family member with whom marriage is considered
unlawful. Therefore, if asked to be removed in front of strangers, it is a
violation of their religious and civic rights.
“It was not just this piece of fabric
that covered my hair. It was a symbol of my devotion to my religion. It was a
symbol of my devotion to understanding that beauty wasn't just physical and
materialistic. To have that stripped from you was something almost unbearable,
"Massri said.
Every state in the US has its own policy
in dealing with religious coverings during arrests. After Massri’s arrest, over
330,000 people signed a petition denouncing her treatment by the county
corrections department.
In a statement to The Miami Herald in
response to the criticism of its handling of the case, the department said it
could “accommodate inmates who wear head coverings for religious reasons” and
noted that it was reviewing the matter “to ensure compliance with our
policies”.
Massri said she is sure something
clicked because five months after her arrest, she got a call from a friend at
the county jail. He told her he was with a Muslim hijab-wearing woman who had
just been arrested. He told her that they did not take off her hijab.
“I'm grateful that I was able to fight
back enough to where something good came out of it,” Massri said.
And in November of the same year, two
Muslim women won their own battles over the issue in New York City.
A 'systematic violation'
In 2017, Jamilla Clark and Arwa Aziz
were arrested. Both were arrested six months apart but faced the same ordeal.
They were asked to remove their hijabs for their booking photos. Surrounded by
men, they both said no. Then, they relented.
In 2018, they got together and filed a
class-action civil rights lawsuit arguing that the New York Police Department’s
(NYPD) “policies for photographing arrestees violate the religious rights of
any civilian forced to remove religious head coverings that leave the face
unobstructed. It could apply to the hijab of a Muslim, the skullcap or wig of
an Orthodox Jew or the turban of a Sikh”.
In 2020, in an effort to settle the
lawsuit, the NYPD agreed to change its policy and allow religious observers to
be photographed in head coverings so long as their faces were left
unobstructed. Under the terms of the settlement agreement, the NYPD was to
revise its patrol guide to reflect the new policy and train officers.
The settlement stated that exceptions
could occur during contraband or weapons inspections, or if an officer
perceives that the headgear poses a threat to the safety of others.
Albert Fox Cahn is a lawyer who
represents Clark and Aziz. While the police department changed its policy, he
says the women are still fighting to seek damages to hold the NYPD accountable
for past violations.
“When we see a large dollar figure
attached to this systematic violation of the First Amendment, it will make
other police departments think twice about policies that force removal of
religious wear,” Cahn told Middle East Eye.
In 2017, the city of Long Beach,
California, agreed to pay $85,000 to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a Muslim
woman whose hijab was pulled off by a male officer while she was in police
custody.
Her lawsuit, filed in 2016, prompted the
Long Beach Police Department to reverse its policy barring people from wearing
religious head coverings.
In February 2018, the NYPD settled a
case filed by three Muslim women for separate incidents concerning the forcible
removal of their hijabs, including during mugshots while in custody.
A month later in New York, another
Muslim woman settled a fourth case against the department on similar grounds.
In total, the department paid out at least $265,000 for the four incidents.
But while there is progress being made
in police departments throughout the country, in other parts of the US, women
are still being forced to remove their hijabs. Just last month, a Muslim woman
from Grand Rapids, Michigan, sued the Kent County Sheriff’s Office because she
was forced to remove her hijab for a booking photo.
Cahn explained that there’s an
interesting relationship between the criminal justice system and the religious
obligations of people.
The First Amendment of the US
Consitution protects several basic freedoms in the US, including freedom of
religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to assemble, and
the right to petition the government.
In 1990, a high-profile case, Employment
Division v Smith, led to the Supreme Court ruling that the First Amendment does
not protect individuals engaging in illegal acts as part of a religious
ceremony.
Following the ruling, in 1993 Congress
passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which "ensures that
interests in religious freedom are protected".
And in 2000, Congress passed the
Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act (RLUIPA), which prohibits
the government from imposing a "substantial burden" on prisoners'
religious practices unless officials can show a compelling need for the
restrictions.
“Prisons have huge amounts of power over
those they hold in their custody. What RLUIPA tries to do is make sure that
power is not abused in a way to systematically target religious beliefs and
practices,” Cahn said.
“Which is why we are able to fight for
these women,” he said.
A counterintuitive act
When a person is arrested, a booking
photo (or mugshot, colloquially) is taken of them to identify them and keep a
record. Women who wear the hijab are generally identified by their hijabs. They
wear their hijabs in their driver's license photos, passport photos, and in
public when they leave their homes.
So it’s counterintuitive when law
enforcement force women to take off their hijabs, Aida Shyef al-Kadi, told
Middle East Eye.
In 2013, Kadi received a traffic
citation for driving without her licence. In June of that year, she missed a
court date because she said she had to take her daughter to the hospital for an
emergency. Soon after, a judge issued a warrant for her arrest.
After she turned herself in, she said
the Ramsey County officers told her to take off her hijab and abaya
(loose-fitting garment some women wear over their clothes). She said she
objected because there were men present. But once she objected, she said she
was pushed into a holding cell where she was asked to take her hijab off in
front of a male officer.
Kadi said she agreed to remove her hijab
for a booking photo after being promised the picture wouldn’t be released to
the public. In the meantime, she claimed that the officers gave her a bedsheet
and then a T-shirt to use as a hijab. She was kept in her cell for 23 hours for
“argumentative behaviour".
The next day, when she was released, she
found that her booking photo had become a public record and was available for
release upon request. So, she filed a lawsuit, and a settlement was reached.
In 2014, Ramsey County updated its
policies to ensure that Muslim women who wear the hijab won’t be forced to
remove their head coverings in front of men. The county now offers Muslim women
jail-approved headscarves.
As part of the settlement, the county
Sheriff’s Office has to train corrections officers on how to offer religious
accommodations to those arrested.
The county also agreed to destroy hard
and electronic versions of her booking photo. In 2019, Kadi received a $120,000
settlement from the county.
She told Middle East Eye that a lot of
people, especially Muslims, questioned her on why she decided to pursue such a
long battle. But to her, the answer is simple.
“The hijab is mine. It belongs to me.
It’s my freedom. It’s my right. It’s my faith. It's mine,” she said. “I am a
Muslim and the only way you can identify me from a non-Muslim is by my hijab.
It’s mine and so I fought for it. It was like a war. They wanted to take
something that belonged to me just because I made a mistake.”
For Massri, her relationship with the
hijab became more complicated. So complicated, that she no longer wears one.
“I felt a lot of guilt for not being
strong enough in defending myself. I know it’s jail and I can’t really defend
myself. But there was so much guilt. I couldn’t keep it on," she said.
After the protests, Massri went viral on
social media. People were stalking her and breaking into her car, and she felt
overwhelmed. Every day when she would look in the mirror, she did not recognise
herself and she felt like she didn’t deserve to wear the hijab anymore.
“I didn't know who that girl was looking
back at me. Every time I’d look in the mirror, I would just remember the power
they had to take my hijab off,” she said.
For Massri, the hijab was a part of her
body. It was not something she felt anyone could control.
“So taking it off myself, I felt like I
regained control. And I regained power in the sense that no one else could take
it off besides me. It was mine."
Islamophobia in American policing
If removing hijabs for booking photos to
identify women is counterintuitive, then why are they asked to do it?
Cahn believes a lot of it has to do with
Islamophobia being intertwined with so many aspects of American policing.
He explained that we see such examples
in the NYPD, for example, when the department systematically targeted Muslims
by surveilling them, othering the community in the process.
In 2011, an Associated Press
investigation found that the NYPD religiously profiled and surveilled NYC
Muslims in an attempt to find "radicalisation", mapping out communities,
conducting video surveillance, recruiting informants, and generating
intelligence databases since 2002.
“We see it endemically throughout
policing that oftentimes Islam is viewed through a lens of suspicion. We see
other cities, and not I'm not talking about just New York City, that have
policies that are clearly designed to target Muslim residents and punish
them."
Kadi remembers the moment she was asked
to take off her hijab. She said she saw so much anger in the officer.
“It felt like they were angry at the
sight of my hijab,” she said.
She said she remembers the officer
telling her that other Muslim women who get arrested don't care about the
hijab. She said she had tried explaining to them that not every woman has to
care.
“It felt like they were not accepting of
others who are not like them. They couldn’t see America's diversity. They
couldn’t see me as somebody.”
Massri believes it’s a power trip. She
believes that the officers who take hijabs off want to take pleasure in having
that much power.
“It’s about them knowing they can hide
behind that badge and nothing will happen to them,” she said.
She explained that in jail, there were
no clocks or windows to tell the time of day.
“So they do this on purpose. At the end
of the day, it’s just to strip you of your humanity.”
Source: middleeasteye.net
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/hijab-is-mine-muslim-women-take-back-rights-us-law-enforcement
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Assam: Rahima Khatun Shot Dead By Forest
Officials After Returning To Evicted Land Due To Flooding In Makeshift
A Muslim woman, identified as Rahima
Khatun was killed in gunfire by forest guards on Monday in Assam’s BurhaChapori
Wildlife Sanctuary after a clash between people who had been evicted from the
area and forest department officials.
The clash broke out after people who
were evicted from the BurhaChapori Wildlife Sanctuary returned due to flooding
in their makeshift settlement.
Three others were also injured in
gunfire by forest guards in the afternoon. Three forest guards were also injured.
“Rahima Khatun’s family had come the
previous day and put up a tarpaulin tent because the land there is higher and
they needed a place to keep their goats and cows,” Abdul Noor, the Nagaon
district president of the All Assam Minority Students’ Union, told The Indian
Express.
Nagaon Wildlife Divisional Forest
Officer JayantaDeka said that the forest guard fired after people attacked
them.
Khatun’s husband Samser Ali was also
suffered a gunshot wound and was hospitalised.
Source: maktoobmedia.com
https://maktoobmedia.com/latest-news/assam-muslim-woman-shot-dead-by-forest-officials-after-returning-to-evicted-land-due-to-flooding-in-makeshift/
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URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-women-feminism/morality-police-iran/d/130270