1979 it was met with protests and demonstrations by liberal and leftist women, and thousands of women participated in a women's march on International Women's Day, 8 March 1979, in protest against mandatory veiling. The protest resulted in the temporary retraction of mandatory veiling. When the left and the liberals were eliminated and the conservatives secured solitary control, however, veiling was enforced on all women, with an edict of mandatory veiling in 1981, followed by an Islamic Punishment Law in 1983, introducing a punishment of 74 lashes on unveiled women. The Guidance Patrol, an undercover law enforcement squad also known as "Morality Police" (Persian: گشت ارشاد‎ Gašt-e Eršād), surveys women in public for dress-code violations. Wearing a headscarf has been strictly enforced in Iran since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Women who did not wear a hijab or were deemed to be wearing "bad hijab" by having some of their hair showing faced punishments ranging from fines to imprisonment. In December 2017, the Iranian government announced women would no longer be arrested for wearing a "bad hijab" in public, but those not wearing one would have to attend Islam education classes. Though the announcement was viewed as a moderate improvement, the police still targeted activists campaigning against compulsory hijab-wearing. On November 26, 2018, Nasrin Sotoudeh, a human-rights lawyer and political prisoner being held at Tehran's Evin Prison, began a hunger strike demanding the release of Farhad Meysami, a doctor who is in jail for protesting compulsory wearing of the hijab. In late 2018 the US State Department condemned the arbitrary arrest of Meisami, who had been on hunger strike since August. In April 2019, Sotoudeh was sentenced to 148 lashes and 38 years in prison for defending opposition activists and women's rights for not wearing hijabs in public. According to the judge presiding over Sotoudeh's case, she was punished for "gathering and colluding to commit crimes against national security" and "insulting the supreme leader". In August 2019, Iranian civil rights activist Saba Kord Afshari was sentenced to 24 years in prison, including a 15-year term for taking off her hijab in public, which Iranian authorities say promoted "corruption and prostitution". Iranian activist Shaparak Shajarizadeh was arrested three times and imprisoned twice for defying Iran's laws about compulsory hijab. She encouraged men and women to "post images on social media of themselves either wearing white or no headscarf to protest being