Who introduced the Guidance Patrol?
Who introduced the Guidance Patrol? Conservatives insist that the Guidance Patrol was initiated by 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 product 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 bring up the story of Akbar Poonz, saying that since the 1980s, it is said that Akbar Ganji used to pin girls without hijab on their foreheads.
However, Abdolreza Davari, a former advisor to Ahmadinejad, recently wrote on his Twitter that the Guidance Patrol is the product of resolution number 427 of the Public Culture Council dated 2005/01/03, titled ‘Strategies for Promoting the Culture of Chastity and Hijab,’ which outlined the responsibilities of agencies, including the police, in dealing with improper hijab. The key to reforming the Guidance Patrol lies with the Minister of Culture as the head of the Public Culture Council.
Guidance Patrol as a tool for political maneuvering
Jalili Mohabi, a revolutionary media figure and former secretary of the Command for Good and Prohibition of Wrong, recently revealed in a television interview the political maneuvering by officials in the Guidance Patrol affair, stating that what the Guidance Patrol does is not the Command for Good and Prohibition of Wrong 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 prosecutor’s actions and the Guidance Patrol continued, Mr. Raisi’s votes in the next election would drop. Therefore, it was decided to replace the responsible prosecutor. The priority of the Command for Good, according to the leader’s directive, should be the Command for Good for officials, not hijab.
Mohabi’s hint at the dominance of politics over the issue known as the Command for Good and Prohibition of Wrong stems from the fact that after Raisi was elected, the Guidance Patrol continued its work with greater intensity and strength. Mohabi, when he was the secretary of the Command for Good and Prohibition of Wrong, had many challenges with Asghar Abdollahi, the cleric and official of this command in Isfahan. However, it seems that ultimately the mindset prevailed that was not much aligned with Mohabi’s positions but rather sided with the Isfahan secretary of this command.
Abdollahi claimed that Mohabi deliberately did not allocate a budget to Isfahan, and Mohabi responded that a budget that is spent on complaints and harassing people certainly won’t reach him. Ultimately, it was Mohabi who was sidelined.
It’s not in the hands of one person and never was.
Conservatives, who these days are defenders of the Guidance Patrol, insist that Khatami was its founder. In 2009, Commander of the Police Force, General Ismail Ahmadi Moghaddam, said in relation to some presidential candidates’ remarks that the police follow the law and the Guidance Patrols continue their work according to the government’s resolution. The actions taken by the police for moral security are a resolution of the Cultural Council, and this resolution was approved in the last days of Khatami’s government and implemented in the early days of Ahmadinejad’s government, and the police had to implement it according to the law.
The Guidance Patrol has always been a point of interest for some candidates during presidential election campaigns. For instance, in 2005, Ahmadinejad famously said on television, ‘Is our problem the hair of our sons and daughters?’ However, as General Ahmadi Moghaddam and Davari also pointed out, the resolution of the Public Culture Council related to the Guidance Patrol continued with strength in his government.
Radan, the then deputy commander of the police force, also stated that some comments by election candidates are likely for advertising purposes, saying that considering there’s no need to respond to every comment, it should be noted that social security plans are not processes in the hands of one person, nor can one person want or be able to change them.
The peak of the Guidance Patrol in conservative governments
With the coming to power of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s government in 2005, the Hijab and Chastity plan was announced by the president, initially launched in the summer of 2006 with the presence of green vans of the Guidance Patrol on the streets, marking the start of the social security enhancement plan. In 2007, the police officially began implementing this plan by confronting those wearing boots.
However, in the winter of 2008, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad criticized the execution of this plan, and in 2009, due to the sensitive presidential elections, this plan was almost downplayed but continued in 2010 with a change in approach under the title of the moral security plan. In 2011, its activities increased, and in the summer of 2012, it extended to attending concerts. But again, with the presidential elections, this plan was downplayed, but after the elections in the summer of 2013, the Guidance Patrol reappeared in shopping centers and concerts.
In Raisi’s government too, the Command for Good and Prohibition of Wrong intensified its activities and instructions to the point where there was talk of camera surveillance and fining women with improper hijab. The regulation for holding educational classes, launching the Guidance Patrol, and its other components was 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 appointment of a like-minded interior minister. For this purpose, the necessary budgets were allocated to conduct educational classes.
Just this July, the head of the country’s Ideological-Political Police Organization announced the launch of a serious Moral Security Police framework, stating that fortunately, moral security is being intensely implemented in Tehran, and actions in this area will also begin in other provinces of the country. In the moral protection plan, targeted, lawful, methodical, and continuous confrontation with moral norm-breakers will be on the agenda, and certainly, society expects the police, as a revolutionary institution, to safeguard and protect the values of society.