Iran’s “morality police” are back and shutting down businesses

In Iran, a company named Digikala has taken control of so much of the e-commerce business in the country that they’ve become known as the Amazon of Iran. They also have a very active web presence where they market their products and services. But it’s that web presence that may have recently gotten them in trouble with the government. That’s not because they were charging too much or carrying products not approved by the mullahs. Digikala made the “mistake” of featuring some photos of some of their office workers going about their business. But some of the women shown in the picture were not wearing headscarves, leaving their hair exposed. Now the Iranian government has shut down one of the company’s offices and initiated judicial procedures against them. So it would appear that after a year of women protesting in the streets, the morality police are back with a vengeance and they’re even hunting for offenders online. (AP)

Iranian authorities have shut down one of the offices of the country’s biggest e-commerce company and launched judicial procedures after it published pictures online showing female employees not wearing the mandatory Islamic headscarf, semi-official media reported.

The move appears to be part of a new campaign launched last week to impose the Islamic dress code nearly a year after the morality police largely melted away in the face of widespread protests.

Digikala, informally known as “Iran’s Amazon,” appears to have run afoul of the rules by posting pictures of a corporate gathering in which several female employees were not wearing the hijab.

The company’s website is reportedly still online and people are able to make purchases. But the offending office has been shuttered. It’s unclear if arrests have already been made or how many people will be persecuted over this.

So much for the “women’s revolt,” I suppose. After 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by the morality police for the “crime” of having her headscarf slightly out of place, the ultraconservative enforcement squads largely seemed to disappear. There were women taking to the streets and setting fires. Some were even calling for the overthrow of Iran’s theocracy. It appeared as if there were simply too many of them out there for the authorities to arrest and we might have been on the way toward seeing the government quietly make some concessions regarding the dress code.

But a lot can change in a year, at least in Iran. Last August, when a cleric cautioned a woman in public about her hijab, she screamed at him, knocked off his turban, and stomped on it in the street. The event went viral and women across the country were praising her and showing no sympathy for the cleric.

I wonder what happened to that woman. I looked but was unable to find any information. She was being feted as a hero last summer, but if she tried that today I fear that she might be taken for a walk off of a tall building.

Iran’s government is flexing its muscles in more areas than just female dress codes. Executions in the country have skyrocketed this year. There were 173 executions of people convicted of illegal drug-related offenses between January and June of 2023. That’s an increase of 300% over the same period last year. In December, two protesters who were supporting changes to the dress code were executed by hanging following secret trials in Iran’s Revolutionary Court. In March of this year, two more men were hanged for blasphemy. Their crime was participating in an online messaging app that was critical of the Iranian government.

If there’s any sort of popular revolt coming in Iran, it appears to have been put on hold, at least for now. But we might take away some hope from the events of last winter. The Iranian people have shown that there are limits to their tolerance for oppression and they will stand up for themselves if push comes to shove. I wish them the best, but they clearly need to be preparing for the worst, at least in the short term.