Iran Shutting Down Morality Police,Official Says, After Months of Protests

Iran Shutting Down Morality Police,Official Says, After Months of Protests The move appeared to be a concession to the protest movement that erupted after the death of Mahsa Amini, a young woman who was being held by the morality police for supposedly violating Islamic dress rules.

Demonstrators in Tehran in October. The protests ignited by the death of Mahsa Amini have grown to encompass the entire range of discontents with Iran’s rulers.Credit...via Associated Press

Iran Shutting Down Morality Police,Official Says, After Months of Protests

New York Times-Dec4th 2022

By Vivian Yee

Iran has abolished the morality police, according to remarks by the attorney general carried on state media, following months of protests set off by the death of a young woman who was being held by the force for supposedly violating the country’s strict Islamic dress laws.

The decision, reported by state news outlets late Saturday night, appeared to be a significant victory for feminists who have sought for years to dismantle the force and for the protest movement ignited by the death of the young woman, Mahsa Amini, 22, in September in the custody of the morality police. The unrest has amounted to one of the biggest challenges in decades to Iran’s system of authoritarian clerical rule and the decision to scrap the morality police was the government’s first major concession to the protesters.

The morality police “was abolished by the same authorities who installed it,” Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri said in remarks during a meeting on Saturday where officials were discussing the unrest, according to state media reports. But he went on to suggest that the judiciary would still enforce restrictions on “social behavior.”

On Thursday, the attorney general said that the authorities were reviewing the country’s head scarf regulations and would issue a decision within 15 days.

There have been many reports from residents of Iran that the morality police have scarcely been seen on the streets since the protests erupted nearly three months ago and women have been increasingly appearing in public with their hair uncovered.

If the morality police are abolished, it would have a major impact on the state’s ability to police what women wear. But it was not immediately clear whether the authorities were planning to relax the laws mandating that women cover their hair and bodies, which remain in place.

The primary role of the morality police was to enforce the laws related to Iran’s conservative Islamic dress code, imposed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and recently invigorated by the country’s new ultraconservative president. The dress code for women became an ideological pillar of the ruling clerical establishment, central to its identity.