The Headquarters for Promoting Virtue finally responded
Last night, after six days, the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice finally reacted to the Mahsa Amini incident through a statement signed by its spokesperson, Seyed Ali Khan Mohammadi, sent to Khabar Online. The statement reads:
1. In the incident that occurred, the principle of establishing justice and transparency is fundamental. It is expected from the judiciary to conduct the best investigation and timely announcement to call the public conscience to a precise and complete examination for a fair judgment.
2. The Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, as it has repeatedly stated, opposes any obligation that leads to direct confrontation of the police with those who are improperly dressed. It believes that this issue can be managed with appropriate solutions and without social tensions. According to the comprehensive plan of the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, the police should transform their status into being the supporters of responsible citizens and the powerful.
3. Now that the President has instructed the Minister of Interior to follow up, it is appropriate for the Minister not to only focus on the details of this specific incident. We ask the Minister of Interior to thoroughly examine whether the 32 agencies, which had 330 legal obligations regarding modesty and hijab according to the resolution of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, have fulfilled their duties to prevent such issues. Have they properly carried out their legal responsibilities? Has the necessary cultural education been provided for this 23-year-old in the Islamic Republic by the cultural agencies, or has there only been rhetoric about cultural work? Has the national broadcaster, which has been assigned the most duties by law and has the greatest responsibility for cultural education in this and similar incidents, fulfilled its cultural responsibilities? How should our youth act so as not to face coercive police forces? Have the police provided the necessary training to their personnel to preserve individuals’ human dignity? From the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue to the Ministry of Interior and other responsible institutions, have they correctly performed their legal duties? Are the education system and universities correctly fulfilling their responsibilities towards our youth, or have inaction and ineffective training handed over our adolescents and young people to the police? If cultural agencies had properly performed their duties, we would not witness such a tragic incident. Must unfortunate events occur for the authorities and responsible parties to think of a solution?
4. The Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, while believing in the necessity of solving the existing issue in the field of modesty and hijab, asserts that neither should the police directly enter the scene, nor should this issue be tied to judicial processes, nor should the government be the custodian and responsible party. Rather, resolving the issue of modesty and hijab is only achievable by the people themselves through proper management, as fully explained in the comprehensive modesty and hijab plan.
5. The Islamic Consultative Assembly should seriously address this issue and save society from the turmoil of crises and the occurrence of incidents that happen from time to time. The Islamic Consultative Assembly should not wait until a promoter of virtue and preventer of vice is beaten or martyred or a young person with improper dress has a stroke in the process of police enforcement, then react passively. As Martyr Soleimani said, all of them are our children. Why should there be conflicts among our children in a state of lawlessness and mismanagement? Laws are enacted to solve social problems, and now that these conflicts exist, it means either there is no law or it is ineffective. In this part, the Islamic Consultative Assembly must urgently focus on its legislative and supervisory role without delay.
6. The Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice continues to emphasize that to solve the issue of improper dress, the criminalization of improper dress, which requires arrest, case-building, and court proceedings, should be removed. According to the comprehensive modesty and hijab plan, improper dress should be treated as a violation, which helps solve the issue without any social tensions. Of course, enemies would like social tensions to always exist.
In conclusion, the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice once again expresses deep sorrow for the occurrence of such unfortunate incidents and genuinely considers it a heart-wrenching pain. It protests the current situation, questioning why, after over forty years, we still witness such bitter and unfortunate events due to the uncertainties in proper law enforcement and its gaps in the failures and shortcomings of particularly cultural institutions.