The police in Iran intend to stick to their recently tightened checks to make sure women are complying with Islamic dress codes, the country's chief of police has said.
Police units will continue the large-scale operation with "vigour, precision and intellect," said police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan, according to a report by state media on Tuesday.
For more than a week, Iran's notorious morality police have been stepping up their crackdown on offences related to the wearing of a headscarf, which is meant to cover all of a woman's hair.
Videos shared on social media in recent days are said to show clashes between women and morality police during some checks. President Ebrahim Raisi has defended the strict controls.
The morality police have until now been less rigorous in their checks since the mass protests led by women in autumn 2022, preferring to use video surveillance.
This has led to, for example, cars being confiscated from women who were repeatedly caught driving without a headscarf.
The authorities also tracked online offences, which generally include pictures of women without headscarves posted on Instagram. Shops and restaurants whose customers disregarded the dress code were closed by order.
More and more Iranian women are now deliberately ignoring the dress code compared to before the protests.
The new law which provides for draconian punishments has been passed by parliament, but has not yet come into force. In the coming weeks, a revised version is to be submitted to the so-called Guardian Council, an arch-conservative supervisory body.