Iran’s so-called “morality police” is resuming patrols to enforce the country’s strict hijab rules, after largely pausing its activities for 10 months following mass protests over the killing of 21-year-old Mahsa Amini last September while she was in police custody. Amini had been detained for allegedly wearing “improper” hijab prior to her arrest.

On Sunday, Saeid Montazeralmahdi, a spokesperson for Faraja, Iran’s law enforcement body, confirmed that the morality police had resumed its street patrols, the state-run Mizan news agency reported. Officers will first issue a warning to any woman breaking the country’s hijab rules, he said, followed by legal action including arrests and being taken to re-education facilities for “those who continue to disregard the consequences of deviating from dress norms.”

Firoozeh Kashani-Sabet, a scholar of Iranian and Middle Eastern history at the University of Pennsylvania, says that it is “unsurprising” that the morality police are returning to the streets.

“The hijab laws have become synonymous with the politics of the Islamic Republic,” she tells TIME, adding that it is “not easy for the Islamic Republic to back away from one of its major policies that serves as a symbol of its power.”

Iran’s morality police has existed in various forms since the 1979 Islamic revolution, but the current version, formally known as Gasht-e Ershad (“Guidance Patrol”), has been in place since 2006.

Following Amini’s death last year, many Iranian women began defying the morality police by refusing to wear the compulsory hijab altogether, while some even burned their headscarves as they chanted “woman, life, liberty” at demonstrations. The morality police remained largely absent during this time, despite Islamic hardliners increasingly demanding that the patrols be resumed.

Read more on the original:https://time.com/6295238/iran-morality-police-return/