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- Siavash Ardalan and Marita Moloney
- From BBC News Persian Service
Credit, Getty Images
A protester holds a photo of Mahsa Amini during protests in Turkey last month
Iran’s morality police, charged with enforcing the Islamic dress code, is being disbanded, the country’s attorney general has said.
Mohammad Jafar Montazeri’s comments, not yet confirmed by other government institutions, were made at an event this Sunday (4).
Iran has seen months of protests over the death of a young woman in authorities’ custody.
Mahsa Amini was detained by the morality police for allegedly breaking the rules on the need to cover the head.
Montazeri was at a religious conference when he was asked if the morality police would be disbanded.
“The morality police has nothing to do with the Judiciary and has been closed from where it had been installed,” he replied.
The control of this force depends on the Ministry of the Interior, and not on the judiciary of the country.
On Saturday, Montazeri also urged the Iranian parliament to examine a law requiring women to wear hijabs.
Even if the morality police are indeed closed, it does not mean that the law in place for decades will be changed.
Protests led by women, labeled “riots” by authorities, have swept Iran since 22-year-old Amini died in custody on Sept. 16, three days after her arrest by morality police in the capital Tehran.
Her death was the catalyst for the demonstrations, which were also driven by discontent over poverty, unemployment, inequality, injustice and corruption.
‘A revolution’
If confirmed, the dismantling of the morality police would be a concession to the protesters, but there are no guarantees that it would be enough to stop the protests.
“The fact that the government decides to dissolve the morality police does not mean that the protests will end,” an Iranian woman told the program. newshour🇧🇷 of the BBC World Service.
Credit, Getty Images
Demonstrations are also taking place outside Iran, as seen in London
“It will also not be enough to say that the hijab is a personal choice. People know that Iran has no future with this government in power. We will see more people from different groups in Iranian society coming out in support of women, so that they get the rights back.”
Another woman stated: “We don’t care about the hijab anymore. We’ve been going out without it for the past 70 days.”
“What we have is a revolution. The hijab was the beginning and we want nothing but the death of the dictator and a change of regime.”
Iran has adopted various forms of “morality police” since the 1979 Islamic Revolution. But the most recent version — formally known as the Gasht-e Ershad — functions as the main agency tasked with enforcing the Islamic code of conduct.
Patrols began in 2006 to enforce dress requirements, which also require women to wear long clothing and prohibit shorts, ripped jeans and other clothing deemed indecent.
