Hear Our Voices from Inside the Guidance Patrol Vans!
by Banafsheh Jamali — 19April2024
Since the Saturday that the Islamic Republic had promised, women have been writing. Social networks these days, alongside bitter narratives of violence and the arrest of women on the streets, are witnessing stories of resistance and steadfastness.
A video shared on social media, showing the arrest of a young woman in Sa’adat Abad, Tehran, by the Guidance Patrol forces. The video shows the illegal arrest of a young woman by Guidance Patrol in Tehran’s Sa’adat Abad for not wearing a mandatory hijab, highlighting unlawful detainment practices:
The streets of Iran these days are witnessing an unequal war of women against repressive forces that want to force them to wear the compulsory hijab. Many women have shared their own stories of arrest and brutal treatment by government agents on social media. Numerous videos of the violent beatings and arrests of women have been published.
A woman has written about her chase by security officers. A few motorcyclists, because of the lack of hijab, attacked the “Snap” car (a ride sharing platform like Uber) she was riding in and screamed at the driver to make the woman get out. However, the male driver, supporting the woman, continued his way and managed to evade the repressive forces after a few minutes of pursuit.
Another woman wrote about the simultaneous arrest of three of her female colleagues. Yet another woman, in a video she published while crying and still without a hijab, spoke of the beatings and how the officers dragged her on the asphalt to take her into a van, but she managed to escape with the intervention of the public.
A man wrote about the arrest of women near “Shahr Theatre” where two hundred officers, along with several guidance patrol vans, stood and arrested women who wear not wearing a scarf.
Another woman reported the presence of officers inside buses, including a woman wearing a chador who was filming and scolding another woman to wear her headscarf or else she would be arrested.
Another woman wrote, “I left home to make use of my day off. Four men were standing in a sort of zigzag formation and at the end of this tunnel of terror that they formed, were throwing women into a large white van.”
Another woman wrote that she had been beaten so much she could not lift her head. She was left somewhere near the Chamran highway in Tehran. Another woman wrote that even worse than being caught by the guidance patrol yourself is having your friend caught — she sat in the metro and cried.
Another woman wrote about the arrest accompanied by the beating of a couple; the security at the Book Garden warned a couple about their hijab. The man, in support of the woman, put on a scarf, and the officers attacked both the woman and man and arrested as they beat them. She wrote, “The officers dragged the woman on the ground. The woman was screaming and asking for help.”
These are just some of the bitter narratives that women have written about since the “Saturday” that the Islamic Republic had promised. The Islamic Republic had announced days before that from Saturday, April 13, it would widely return its guidance patrols to the streets all over Iran. A widespread presence that has transformed cities across the country into intense high security settings.
But will the women retreat?
The historical calendar of women’s struggles around the world is full of these Saturdays. These Saturdays when governments, through threats and by employing various tools of suppression, have tried to push women back. Women in Iran are no exception to this rule. The presence of guidance patrols on the streets of Iran is nothing new. Resistance against compulsory hijab and not yielding to imposed dress codes by the Islamic Republic has a forty-year history for women. During these forty years, many women have shared their own experiences with the guidance patrol vans. They have ended up in ministry buildings in Tehran and other buildings where women have been transferred for not wearing hijab.
The forty-some-year history of women’s struggles against compulsory hijab in Iran shows that repression and arrests cannot force women to yield to the dress code preferred by the Islamic Republic. From Homa Darabi, who set herself on fire in Tajrish Square in March 1994 in protest against the compulsory hijab and anti-women laws of the Islamic Republic, to Jina Mahsa Amini and Armita Geravand, two young girls who were killed by the Islamic Republic in recent years because of their attire. These are all examples of women who have paid exorbitant prices for the right to their bodies and choice of dress.
These days, alongside narratives of the arrest of women in the streets, social networks are also witnessing the narrative of the resistance and steadfastness of these women. Women who, like the woman who writes this account, continue their daily fight:
“Today, I will step into the street without a hijab. I am scared and do not know if this departure will have a return, but seeing other unveiled women in the street reassures me that I am not alone in this path and, hand in hand with my sisters who do not have the head to stand up and surrender in front of this oppressive and anti-woman government, I will continue this path.”
