Iran: Morality Police Disbanded, A Gesture Towards Demonstrators

Iran has announced it will disband the morality police responsible for the arrest of young Mahza Amini, whose death in custody has sparked a wave of protests in Iran for nearly three months.

The announcement came as a gesture to protesters after authorities decided on Saturday to restore a 1983 law on compulsory veiling in Iran, imposed four years after the 1979 Islamic revolution.

Morality police arrested 22-year-old Iranian Kurdin Mahza Amini in Tehran on September 13, accusing her of disobeying the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code, which requires women to wear veils to visitors.

His death was announced three days later. Activists and her family say Mahsa Amini died of a beating, but authorities have linked her death to health problems, which her parents have denied.

Her death sparked a wave of protests, when women spearheaded the struggle, chanting “woman, life, freedom” and burning their veils.

The resistance movement continues despite a crackdown that has left hundreds dead.

“The moral police (…) has been abolished by those who created it,” Attorney General Mohammad Zafar Montazeri, quoted by Isna news agency on Sunday, said on Saturday evening.

The police force, known as Kasht-e Ershad (orientation patrols), was created under ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (2005-2013) to “spread dignity and hijab culture”.

The unit, which consists of men in green uniforms and women in black chadors that cover the head and upper body, began its patrols in 2006 with the aim of enforcing the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code, which also prohibits women from wearing tight pants. Short films. Women who break the law risk being taken away.

Kasht-e Ershad was formed at the time by the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, led by ultra-conservative President Ibrahim Raisi, who was elected in 2021.

In July, Mr. Raisi declared that “enemies of Iran and Islam want to undermine the cultural and religious values ​​of society” and called for “mobilizing all institutions to strengthen the law on the veil”.

Yet under the rule of his moderate predecessor, Hassan Rouhani, one could see women in tight jeans wearing colorful headscarves.

On Saturday, the same lawyer Mohammad Zafar Montaseri announced that “Parliament and the Judiciary are working” on the mandatory veil issue, without specifying what could be changed in the law.

This is a very sensitive issue in Iran, where two camps are clashing: conservatives who base themselves on the 1983 law and progressives who want to give women the right to choose whether or not to wear it.

A law in place since 1983 requires Iranian and foreign women, regardless of religion, to wear veils and loose clothing in public.

After Mahza Amini’s death and the protests that followed, a growing number of women have been covering their heads, particularly in Tehran’s upscale north.

On September 24, a week after the protests began, Iran’s main reformist party urged the government to scrap the veil requirement.

Iranian authorities consider the demonstrations “riots” and accuse foreign powers of being behind the movement, which is destabilizing the country.

More than 300 people have died in protests since September 16, according to a recent report by Iranian General Amirali Hajizadeh of the Revolutionary Guards.