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Dissident paper: A man holds a copy of the Iranian newspaper »Etemad« in his hand (archive photo from August 2022)
Photo: Atta Kenare / AFP
Iranian prosecutors have filed charges against a daily newspaper critical of the government after it published a top-secret state document on the deployment of the morality police. This was announced by the judicial portal Mizan on Sunday.
The document, published by the newspaper Etemad, is a written instruction from the Ministry of the Interior to deploy thousands of moral guardians. They were supposed to monitor whether women adhere to the Islamic dress code in public places.
Last week, the Ministry of the Interior distanced itself from the morality guards, claiming that they were civilians – not part of the morality police and the ministry. According to the Ministry of the Interior, they would only voluntarily and only verbally advocate for the observance of Islamic customs in society.
The document published by Etemad, on the other hand, suggests that these guards are also connected to the ministry. The newspaper is considered to be very critical of the government.
End of October: Death of a 16-year-old girl
After the death of 16-year-old Armita Garawand at the end of October, the so-called voluntary moral guardians once again caused outrage far beyond Iran's borders. The background was an alleged confrontation between the morality guards and the young woman in a subway at the beginning of October, after she had refused to wear the headscarf, which is mandatory in the country. The 16-year-old succumbed to her serious injuries a few weeks after the incident.
The authorities had rejected any connection with the deployment of the morality guards, and state media also denied violence on the part of the morality police. Garawand had fallen due to low blood pressure and hit his head, the official statement said. Human rights activists doubt this version of events.
The incident sparked worldwide protest, with Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock writing on Platform X that the "brutality of the regime" had "robbed Garawand of his future." At Garawand's funeral, a well-known civil rights activist and other participants were arrested.
Garawand's fate reminds many of the 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini. Amini had died in police custody in September 2022 after an altercation with the morality police over compliance with dress codes. Her death last year sparked the most serious protests in decades. Since then, many women have demonstratively ignored the headscarf requirement.
irb/dpa