An Iranian lawmaker said Sunday that the Iranian government is “paying attention to the real demands of the people,” a day after a senior official said morality police, at the origin of months of protests in the country, were abolished.
The activity of the morality police, in charge of enforcing current laws, began to be questioned after the arrest of 22-year-old Masha Amini for incorrect use of the Islamic veil and who died in detention.
His death sparked a wave of escalating protests that culminated in calls for the overthrow of religious leaders in the Islamic Republic.
On Saturday, the attorney general, Mohamed Jafar Montazeri, revealed that the morality police “have been eliminated,” the ISNA news agency reported. The agency did not provide details and the state media did not refer to this alleged decision.
In statements released by ISNA, the deputy Nezamoddin Mousavi referred this Sunday to a less confrontational approach to the protests.
“The government and parliament have insisted that paying attention to people’s demands, which are above all economic, is the best way to guarantee stability and deal with turmoil,” he said, after a closed-door meeting with several Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim. Raisi.
Mousavi declined to comment on the disbandment of the moral police.
The Associated Press (AP) news agency could not confirm the current status of the force, established in 2005 with the task of detaining and questioning people who violated the current Islamic dress code.
Since September, several reports indicate a reduction in the number of moral policemen in Iranian cities and an increase in the number of women appearing in public without the Islamic headscarf, even if it continues to contravene Iranian law.
Attorney General Montazeri did not specify the future of the morality police, nor whether its extinction was applicable at the national and permanent level. However, he added, the Iranian judicial system “will continue to scrutinize behavior at the community level.”
On Friday, ISNA reproduced Montazeri’s remarks in which he claimed the government was reviewing the mandatory law on women’s hijab use.
“We are working quickly on the hijab issue and doing everything we can to ensure a sensible solution to address this phenomenon that breaks everyone’s heart,” Montazeri said, without elaborating.
Saturday’s announcement could mark an attempt to appease the population and find a way to end protests that human rights organizations say have already killed at least 470 people.
More than 18,000 people have been detained in the protests and in a violent crackdown by security forces, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that has been monitoring the demonstrations.
Source: TSF
