Who brought the Guidance Patrol?
Who brought the Guidance Patrol? Conservatives insist that the Guidance Patrol was a creation of Khatami’s government. Ahmadinejad’s advisor claims it was his boss’s doing, while reformist critics of the Guidance Patrol say, ‘Isn’t it according to your narrative that Mohammad Khatami is a rebel? Why insist on continuing a practice you claim he started? Stop it.’ The Guidance Patrol is the offspring of a mindset that now refuses to accept responsibility for its creation.
It wants to keep it but blames its inception on another faction. That’s why these days, whenever someone associated with the reformists or the reformist movement criticizes the existence and performance of the Guidance Patrol, they recall the story of Akbar Poonz, saying that yes, it is reported from the 1980s that Akbar Ganji used to stick pins on the foreheads of unveiled girls.
However, Abdolreza Davari, a former advisor to Ahmadinejad, recently tweeted that the Guidance Patrol is the product of resolution number 427 of the Public Culture Council on 2005/01/03, titled ‘Strategies for Promoting the Culture of Modesty and Hijab,’ which outlined the duties of institutions, including the police, to deal with improper hijab. The key to reforming the Guidance Patrol is in the hands of the Minister of Culture as the head of the Public Culture Council.
The Guidance Patrol as a tool for political gamesmanship.
Jalili Mohabi, a revolutionary media figure and former secretary of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Headquarters, recently revealed in a television interview the political maneuvering of officials in the Guidance Patrol affair, stating that what the Guidance Patrol does is not promoting virtue and preventing vice because it acts as a judicial officer under the prosecutor’s supervision.
In 2019, a meeting was held in the office of the then-head of the judiciary, Mr. Raisi, where it was said that if the actions of the prosecutor’s office and the Guidance Patrol continued, Mr. Raisi’s votes in the next election would decline. Therefore, it was decided to replace the responsible prosecutor. The priority of promoting virtue, according to the leader’s order, should be promoting virtue among officials, not hijab.
Mohabi’s remark about the dominance of politics over the issue of promoting virtue and preventing vice stems from the fact that after Raisi’s election victory, the Guidance Patrol continued its work with more intensity and strength. Mohabi, during his time as secretary of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Headquarters, had many challenges with Asghar Abdollahi, a cleric and head of this headquarters in Isfahan, but it seems that ultimately the mindset prevailed that was not much aligned with Mohabi’s positions and instead sided with the Isfahan secretary of this headquarters.
Abdollahi claimed that Mohabi deliberately did not provide a budget to Isfahan, and Mohabi responded that any budget spent on complaints and harassing people certainly would not reach him. Ultimately, it was Mohabi who was sidelined.
It wasn’t and isn’t in the hands of one person.
Conservatives, who these days are defenders of the Guidance Patrol, insist that Khatami was its founder. In 2009, the police commander, General Esmail Ahmadi-Moghaddam, said in relation to the statements of some presidential candidates that the police follow the laws and the Guidance Patrols continue their work according to government resolutions. The actions that the police take for moral security are resolutions of the Cultural Council, and this resolution was approved in the last days of Khatami’s government and implemented early in Ahmadinejad’s government, and the police had to enforce it according to the law.
During presidential election campaigns, the Guidance Patrol has always been a focus of some candidates. For example, in 2005, Ahmadinejad famously said on television, ‘Is the problem the hair of our daughters and sons?’ However, as both General Ahmadi-Moghaddam and Davari pointed out, the resolution of the Public Culture Council related to the Guidance Patrol continued strongly in his government.
Radan, the then deputy police commander, also stated that probably some of the candidates’ remarks were for advertising purposes, and said that since there is no need to respond to every comment, it should be noted that social security plans are not something that is in the hands of one person, and one person cannot or should not move them.
The peak of the Guidance Patrol during conservative governments.
With the advent of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government in 2005, the plan for hijab and modesty was issued by the president, which initially in the summer of 2006, with the presence of green vans of the Guidance Patrol on the streets, the plan to enhance social security was initiated, and in 2007, the police formally began this plan to deal with boot-wearers.
However, in the winter of 2008, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized the implementation of this plan, and in 2009, due to the sensitive presidential election, this plan was almost faded out but in 2010, it continued with a change in approach under the title of the moral security plan. In 2011, its activity increased, and in the summer of 2012, it extended to attending concerts, but again with the presidential election, this plan became less prominent, yet after the election and in the summer of 2013, the Guidance Patrol returned to the squares, shopping centers, and concerts.
In Raisi’s government, the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Headquarters intensified its activities and instructions to the point where discussions of camera surveillance and fines for improperly veiled women were brought up. The regulations for holding educational classes, launching the Guidance Patrol, and other related measures were easily approved and implemented with the presence of Kobra Khazali in the Cultural Council of the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, Ensieh Khazali in the Vice Presidency for Women and Family Affairs, and the selection of a like-minded Minister of Interior. For this purpose, the necessary budgets were allocated to conduct educational classes.
Just this July, the head of the Political and Ideological Organization of the National Police announced the serious establishment of the Moral Security Police and said, ‘Fortunately, moral security is being carried out intensely in Tehran, and actions in this area will begin in other provinces of the country as well. In the moral protection plan, targeted, lawful, systematic, and continuous confrontation with moral norm-breakers is on the agenda, and certainly, society expects the police, as a revolutionary institution, to protect and safeguard the values of society.’