Iran scraps morality police amid protests
Protesters have called for a three-day strike as they continue to maintain pressure on authorities over Mahsa Amini’s death
TEHRAN: Iran has scrapped its morality police after more than two months of protests triggered by the arrest of Mahsa Amini for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women, local media said on Sunday.
“Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary” and have been abolished, attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
His comment came at a religious conference where he responded to a participant who asked “why the morality police were being shut down”, the report said.
The morality police - known formally as the Gasht-e Ershad or “Guidance Patrol” - were established under hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to “spread the culture of modesty and hijab”, the head covering for women.
The units began patrols in 2006. The announcement of their abolition came a day after Montazeri said that “both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the issue)” of whether the law requiring women to cover their heads needs to be changed.
President Ebrahim Raisi said in televised comments on Saturday that Iran’s republican and Islamic foundations were constitutionally entrenched “but there are methods of implementing the constitution that can be flexible”.
Biggest protests since 1979 Islamic Revolution
Protesters in Iran called on Sunday a three-day strike this week as they seek to maintain pressure on authorities over the death in custody of Amini, with protests planned on the day President Raisi is due to address students in Tehran.
Raisi is expected to visit Tehran University on Wednesday, celebrated in Iran as Student Day. To coincide with Student Day, protesters are calling for strikes by merchants and a rally towards Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Square, according to individual posts shared on Twitter by accounts unverified by Reuters.
They have also called for three days of boycotting any economic activity starting on Monday.
Similar calls for strike action and mass mobilisation have in past weeks resulted in an escalation in the unrest which has swept the country - some of the biggest anti-government protests since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution
The activist HRANA news agency said 470 protesters had been killed as of Saturday, including 64 minors. It said 18,210 demonstrators were arrested and 61 members of the security forces were killed.
Last month, the United Nations said it would investigate Iran for human rights violations and called on the Islamic Republic to immediately end its targeting of demonstrators.