Known as Gasht-e ershad, hijab police or Patroll-e Ershad (Guidance Patrol), the unit can intervene in matters such as clothing and morals.
Irshad patrols operate in all regions of Iran. The police are usually men with beards or women with veils, who are veiled in accordance with the rules. Irshad patrols have very wide powers and can leave from anywhere at any time. The purpose of the police is to warn people whose clothing, outfits and behaviors are "contrary to Islam". The police can make the people they warn sign a paper that "it will not happen again". Some people may be fined. If anyone resists these police, they are referred to the court after they are detained. Sometimes women's clothes are torn apart and women are sent home with a dirty black sheet.
After the Iranian Revolution, people's lifestyles began to be interfered with. However, Irshad patrols were institutionalized in 2005.
Iranian journalist according to the information given by Dr. Savash Porgham, the real name of this unit is the "moral security police". Their main purpose is to “increase the safety of social life”. According to Porgham, these units patrol with a team of at least 3 people. On the other hand, the policemen to be accepted into the unit are chosen from among the most radical.
The main goal of morality police is to keep women under control by pacifying women in social life.
The administration in Iran interferes with the dressing of not only Iranian citizens, but also foreign guests who come to the country. Women, in particular, have to wear a headscarf. On the other hand, many theologians state that there is no such thing as forcibly closing or opening it in Islam. For example, the theologian Caner Taslaman said, “There is no religious penalty for being closed to a woman or a man as a religious rule. This is not a rule of religion and it is very clear.” However, in Iran, the way of life of men and women continues to be interfered with on the grounds of "religion".
September 18, 2022: Mahsa, who was detained by the morality police, died
Mahsa Amini, 22, who was detained by the morality police in Iran, fell into a coma during her detention and died.
After 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was detained by the Moral Police in Iran for not wearing the hijab properly, died in a coma during detention, her family and human rights organizations reacted strongly.
According to videos posted on social media, Amini was beaten while she was detained on Tuesday in Tehran, where she went to see her family, on the grounds that she did not comply with the hijab rules. In the center where she was detained, she collapsed to the ground and fell into a coma, and it was later announced that the young woman died. While Iran denied the allegations of ill-treatment, it released footage of the young woman suddenly collapsing while waiting in the detention centre. The family claimed that the young woman had no history of illness and that she had fallen into a coma due to the blows she received.
Amnesty International has called for an investigation into the mysterious death. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan condemned the death in a statement on Twitter, saying, "We will continue to hold Iranian officials accountable for such human rights violations." Said Deghan, one of Iran's leading lawyers, stated that the young woman's skull was broken after the blows she received on her head and defined the incident as "murder".