Iran Sues Leading Newspaper Over Leaked Top Secret 'Morality Guard' Document

The Iranian public prosecutor's office has slapped a prominent newspaper with charges over the publication of a top-secret government document outlining the country's volunteer morality guards - guys who go around whacking women for not wearing hijabs and other violations of Sharia law, who are separate from (but similar to) the country's official morality police. 

According to DW, citing the judiciary's Mizan news, a reformist daily newspaper, Etmad, published the "highly confidential" document - an instruction from the Interior Ministry regarding the deployment of thousands of morality guards to enforce the country's Hijab dress code for women.

While the Iranian government has sought to portray the morality guards as nothing more than civilian volunteers who aren't part of the ministry, or the official morality police. But the leaked documents shows deep links between the group and the ministry.

Iran's morality guards came under fire last month following the death of 16-year-old Armita Geravand, who fell into a coma after morality guards reportedly beat her into a coma for not wearing a hijab.

Geravand was hospitalized and fell into a coma in after she reportedly had a confrontation with morality guards on the Tehran Metro for not wearing a hijab. She died in hospital weeks later.

The incident prompted comparisons with the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who died in the custody of the morality police in 2022.

Her death led to unprecedent women's rights protests in Iran and around the world. -DW

Iranian authorities have denied that the morality police caused Geravand's death, which claimed that she fell and hit her head due to 'low blood pressure,' MDJ reports. The incident caused eight UN experts to call for an "independent, prompt, and impartial" investigation into the incident, saying that women and girls "should not be punished for wearing or not wearing any specific piece of clothing, and should certainly not be at risk of losing their lives for doing so."