Iran to demobilize morality police due to protests

• The country’s attorney general says that Iran’s morality police, which is in charge of making sure people follow the Islamic dress code, is being disbanded.
• Sunday, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said something that hasn’t been confirmed by other sources. He said it at an event.
• Protests over the death of a young woman in custody have gone on for months in Iran.

Sunday, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said something that hasn’t been confirmed by other sources. He said it at an event.

Protests over the death of a young woman in custody have gone on for months in Iran.

Mahsa Amini was taken into custody by the morality police because she was accused of breaking strict rules about how to cover her head.

Mr. Montazeri was at a religious conference when he was asked if the morality police was going away.

He said, “The morality police had nothing to do with the law, so they were shut down where they were set up.”

The ministry of the interior, not the court, is in charge of the police.

On Saturday, Mr. Montazeri also told the Iranian parliament that the law that says women have to wear hijabs would be looked at.
Even if the morality police are taken away, the law that has been in place for decades will not change.

Since Amini, 22, died in custody on September 16, three days after she was arrested by Tehran’s morality police, women-led protests, which the government calls “riots,” have spread across Iran.

The unrest started with her death, but it was also caused by anger over poverty, unemployment, inequality, unfairness, and corruption.
“What we have is a revolution.” If the end of the morality police is confirmed, it would be a concession, but there is no guarantee that it would be enough to stop the protests, in which people have burned their hats.

One Iranian woman revealed, “Just because the government decided to get rid of the morality police doesn’t mean the protests are over.”

“It is not enough for the government to say that the hijab is a personal choice. People understand that Iran has no future as long as this government is in charge. More people from moderate and traditional parts of Iranian society will come out in support of women to help them get more of their rights back.

Another woman said, “We protesters no longer care about hijabs. We’ve been going out for the past 70 days without it.

“What we have is a revolution. Hijab was the first step, and we don’t want anything less than the dictator’s death and a change of government.”

State TV Al-Alam is said to have said that foreign media were portraying Mr. Montazeri’s comments as “the Islamic Republic backing away from the issue of hijab and modesty and saying it’s because of the recent riots.”

“But no one from the Islamic Republic of Iran has said that the Guidance Patrol has been shut down.”

Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State, said that getting rid of Iran’s morality police could be “a good thing.” He also praised the “extraordinary courage” of the young Iranians, especially the women, who have been leading the protests.

Blinken said, “If the government has now done something in response to those protests, that could be a good thing.”

Since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has had different kinds of “morality police,” but the Gasht-e Ershad is the main agency in charge of enforcing Iran’s Islamic code of conduct right now.

They started patrolling in 2006 to make sure people were following the dress code, which says that women must wear long clothes and that shorts, ripped jeans, and other clothes seen as immodest are not allowed.

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