Iran’s Attorney General Claims Morality Police 'Abolished' After Months Of Protests: Reports

Iran's Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said Saturday that the country’s controversial morality police will be “abolished,” local media reported, amid ongoing nationwide protests. However, many conflicting reports suggest that may not be the case.

"Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary and have been abolished," Montazeri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

The morality police “was abolished by the same authorities who installed it," Montazeri said during a meeting at which officials were discussing the unrest, according to state media reports.

It was unclear whether the statement amounted to a final decision by the government, which has neither announced the abolition of the morality police nor denied it.

Iran's Morality Police Abolished

Women-led protests have swept Iran since the death of 22-year-old Masha Amini in custody on 16 September, three days after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran.

Her death was the catalyst for the unrest that followed demonstrations of hijab-burning on streets, cutting-off hair to observe dissent and much more.

Montazeri’s brief and unscripted comment came in response to a question about “why the morality police were being shut down,” at a religious conference. He also told the Iranian parliament the law that requires women to wear hijabs would be looked at.

Even if the morality police is shut down this does not mean the decades-old law will be changed. Reports also suggest that Iran’s morality police has been far less active since mass demonstrations began in mid-September.

On Sunday, according to The New York Times, Iranian women and activists took to social media to dismiss talk of disbanding the force as a propaganda tactic by the government to distract from the larger demands of protesters for an end to the Islamic Republic’s rule. The concession would be too little, too late, many said.

Shadi Sadr, a prominent human rights lawyer who has fought for women’s rights in Iran for decades, said on Twitter that scrapping the morality police would not be big news because “hijab is still compulsory and enforced by other means such as expulsion from university or school.”

The protest will not end, she said, “until the regime is gone.”

Suggested Reading: Of Dissent And Solidarity: Revisiting Top 5 Moments Of Iran’s Uprising