How Iran Protests Over Dress Codes Stoked Broader Public Anger

The death in September of a young woman after she was detained for allegedly violating Iran’s strict dress code has sparked violent protests across the country. Popular anger was focused initially on the so-called Guidance Patrol -- police officers who target women they deem to be improperly dressed in public -- but soon broadened to encompass decades-long grievances toward the whole theocratic system in place since Iran’s 1979 revolution. Unlike previous protests, the current demonstrations have unified people across class and ethnic lines. Protesters have faced a violent crackdown by security forces, who have killed hundreds of people, according to rights groups. Yet the demonstrations have persisted.

The immediate trigger was the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, which was announced Sept. 16. According to state media, she’d traveled from the western province of Kurdistan with family to Tehran, where a Guidance Patrol team detained her outside a metro station claiming she was inappropriately dressed. The Guidance Patrol increased its activity after the election last year of conservative Ebrahim Raisi to the Iranian presidency. Amini was taken to a police station, according to an account in the reformist Shargh newspaper. After news of her death emerged, Iranian state TV released CCTV footage of Amini collapsing over a chair and onto the floor. Tehran’s police force said she suffered “heart failure.” Her father, Amjad Amini, told the BBC that doctors found her collapsed outside the hospital with no explanation of who she was or what had happened to her. She went into a coma and died two days later. Her family have accused authorities of beating her and covering it up, saying she had no underlying health conditions.