A video captured on a public bus in Iran appears to show passengers stopping an undercover morality officer from removing a woman from the vehicle.
The footage, shared by Iranian rights activist Masih Alinejad, appears to show a young woman with her hair loose being accosted by an older woman, who is trying to force the younger woman off the bus.
But before she can remove her from the bus other women intervene, telling her to “get lost” and “give up.”
They intervene physically, and the older woman, believed to be an undercover agent for Iran’s “morality police” — aimed at enforcing religious rules on the population — is removed by the public from the bus.
It is required in Iran for women to wear headscarves, though many opt for loose coverings while others choose to wear items that conceal them more. It is not clear where in Iran the footage was filmed.
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Alinejad wrote on Twitter: “Today, a molarity (sic) police assaulted a women on the bus and wanted to arrest her because her hair was not covered. Other women stopped her. This is a daily struggle for Iranian women. Last year Islamic Republic hired 7,000 undercover morality police in Tehran.”
While strict rules had been gradually easing under former president, Hassan Rouhani, under the new hardliner Iranian president, Ebrahim Raisi — a close ally of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei — it appears that rules are being enforced more strictly.
