Tehran’s Police Festival
Oct 8th, 2009 by pedestrian
This past week, the annual “Police Festival” was held in Tehran. What is interesting and which was highlighted by AyandehNews was the male/female interaction (i.e., a** kicking!).
For a long time, “woman officer” only meant Fatemeh Komando [Fatemeh the Commando] which was a title given to females who harassed other females in the streets for their clothing, makeup or boyfriends.
In the past few years since the police force has started recruiting women, you see them in the street from time to time (although very rarely, I see them more in photos of this kind then on the street, possibly because of their small number and Tehran being such a gigantic place.) And as one of them told me in the passport office, they “train us but then give us office jobs.” That’s not the case for all of them, because you do catch hints and glimpses of female officers from time to time.
Another officer told me that these female officers come from less financially privileged families (you could imagine that most well-to-do Iranians would not let their kids – boy or girl – join the police force.) This is just a guess, but I would imagine that this would mean that these girls are tough, and some have grown up with quite a lot to deal with. Kicking a guy in the knees must be child’s play for some of them.
UPDATE: Tehran Police Festival continues, but men and women will no longer be featured side by side as that has sparked controversy.
[h/t Naj and Foruhar]
Thanks! What astonishingly vivid pics you/the Iranian media provide – and what a fascinating range of facial expressions!
parvati_roma, well, we will have to thank Farce News (Fars News, the pro-Ahmadi website) for the photos. Yes, the expressions are fascinating!
We had a close family friend that was a Tehran policeman. He was (and still is) the nicest man. Whenever and wherever possible, he would help us out. I still remember him in his snappy blue uniform and distinctly Iranian officer’s hat (they were blue back then). He seemed to be so happy all the time. Our friend Jamsheed.
Looks like the police still use service revolvers. The one aiming the pistol appears to be a Sarhang dovom (سرهنگ دوم).
The judo troupe is great. You can just make out a set of kids in the background, wearing these camo type gi. (Looks like judo, anyway.) Iranians usually do well in taekwondo at the olympics.
Pirouz, I am guessing that before the revolution, the officers were better paid (and there were fewer of them)? Or is that just an illusion?
Dear Pedestrian
Wasn’t it the case that the police force didn’t behave as fanatically brutal as the basiji-militia and the IRGC? I think you mentioned somewhere in your blog the significance of the creation of parallel military and police forces: i.e. a) the regular, less ideologized ones and b) the ideologized, fanatic gladiator troops
[reminds me remotely - agpologies - of the establishing of parallel military and police forces in Germany: the regular police and army (Wehrmacht) and the ideologically reliable and brutal - beyond description - SS-forces with police and army-functions; but seen in today's light each and everyone committed gruesome crimes, though with the regular forces the one or other jewish or critical or communist or socialdemocratic German had a glimmer of a survival-chance]
All the best
German
Wow. So did she break all the slabs? I know Iranian women are tough..but dang!
Bijan, there was no “after” photo, but I would think that she did!
German, a lot of the police officers are doing their mandatory two year military service. Many of their bosses are also those who just ended up staying, because it provides a meager income. They are young kids from all over Iran. There is much less ideological force in their recruitment and training than in the basij. So I would imagine that to be the case. The important thing though is what sort of orders they were given from above regarding the protesters.
Dear Pedestrian,
Thanks for your revealing answer enhancing my knowledge of what’s happening in Iran as to the question discussed. –
You are right: as to police forces and the military of course the system of “order” and “obedience” holds true everywhere in the world.
But there is a perceptible and noticeable difference, if a particular and separated police or military force from the top down to the category of lowest paid and lowest ranked is ideologized, fanaticized, politicized, and dependent not on the ordinary chain of orders, on the orders of parliament or the government in general, but on the orders of a party or of some particular member of the ruling group:
Then these forces will do much more than is due or than these rank and file members are ordered to do.
Whereas regular forces tend to just fulfill somehow the orders, not necessarily identifying with the orders given. –
I remember reports of Iranian policemen restraining to a certain degree some fanatic, stirred up members of the basiji-militias. Your information as to who does police and military service clarifies and explains these reports in my opinion.
[In Nazi-Germany - apologies! - the SS-police forces and the SS-military forces - in some contrast to the regular policed and army forces -
not being regular forces and being under the direct order of the Nazi-party and Hitler right from the beginning of that regime and identifying with Hitler,
were ideologized and fanaticized in their lethal hatred to such a degree,
that when a few days or even hours before the end of the Third Reich [i.e. before the end of the war] they were given the order to stop fighting the Allied forces in the Normandy, or to stop killing the concentration camp “residents”, they disregarded these orders coming from the top – they just couldn’t stop fighting or killing – prolonging thus considerably the war and the number of killed soldiers and civilians – and killing an additional huge number of victims in the concentration camps.
Source:
a) (the British historian) Antony BEEVOR: D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (2009)
b) (the US-American historian) Daniel Jonah GOLDHAGEN: Hitler’s Willing Executioners (1996) –
a book which initiated the intensive and long-lasting so-called “Goldhagen debate” in Germany, because the German historians, the German public, i.e. German society in general that is at that time refused to look into the mirror of historical truth and historical facts.)]
Thanks for your patience
and in particular
apologies for covering that much of your blogging space
All the best
German
According to No-Andish, Mullahs have protested to these pictures and disciplinary actions’ taken on the officers who have engaged in male-female fights
update:
“رزمی کاران نمایشگاه پلیس با هم محرم بوده اند”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/iran/2009/10/091013_m_police_exhb.shtml
Thanks foruhar!