Iranian Lawmakers Divided Over How To Treat Protesters
With protests in Iran well into their fifth week, some Iranian lawmakers are at odds over the government’s approach to handling the unrest.
While the protests have moved well beyond the hijab issue, turning into full-blown anti-government demonstrations and clashes with security forces, some lawmakers defiantly insist on a crackdown on hijab and are calling for a crackdown on protests, while others appear to be down paths seek to appease the situation by trying to persuade others to accept peaceful demonstrations.
Ultra-conservative cleric Mojtaba Zolnouri, a member of the Iranian parliament from Qom, told Iranian website Asr that “women who do not cover their hair should be sentenced to 74 lashes”. He claimed that “a notice from the vice squad for women taking off their hijab will not be enough”.
Zolnouri, who is a member of parliament’s National Security Committee, has criticized other lawmakers for questioning the morality police and said Iranians should not question the reasons for their mission. He accused lawmakers who criticize the vice squad of disturbing the public’s peace of mind.
According to Asr Iran, the vice squad has filed complaints with the judiciary to bring critics of the parliament to justice for condemning its performance.
In a different development hard-line lawmaker Mousa Ghazanfarabadi told ISNA that women violating the mandatory hijab rules should be identified using facial recognition technology and then stripped of their social rights. Ghazanfarabadi went on to try to justify the use of force in “dealing with women who flagrantly violate the mandatory hijab rules”.
An Iranian woman who was shot dead with “birdshots” fired from a shotgun by security forces had 187 bullets lodged in her body
Meanwhile, most complaints of violent behavior by security personnel relate to plainclothes agentslawmaker Hossein Nushabadi said in an interview with website Rouydad24 that “plainclothes officers have nothing to do with women or protesters in general unless they are being attacked.” However, he did not say why these officers do not wear uniforms so everyone knows who they are.
Although Noushabadi claimed that plainclothes officers do not attack people, he did not rule out the presence of “scoundrels” among them and acknowledged that some of the protesters were killed or wounded by these scoundrels. However, he refused to say how people can distinguish between plainclothes officials and rogues. Armed plainclothes officers can be seen in many videos of the protests on social media.
However, in his defense of the protesters, Noushabadi called on the government to designate specific locations where people can protest peacefully without fear of reprisals from security forces or civilian officials. Such calls have been made repeatedly over the past 30 years, but no practical action has been taken by the government.
In a different development lawmaker Mohammad Hassan Asafari told ILNA in an interview on Monday that “no government authorization is required to hold protest gatherings.
The right to protest is recognized in Article 27 of the Iranian Constitution, but various Iranian governments have refused to uphold this right and respect constitutional law over the past four decades. The only conditions laid down in the law for taking part in protest movements are that the demonstrators must not be armed and the protest must not be directed against the essence of Islam.
According to Asafari, unless powerful political parties are formed in Iran, it will be difficult to convince the government of people’s right to protest.