Iran 'Abolishes' Morality Police After Months Of Protests: Report

The protests, which started in September this year, across the country were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police.

File Photo: A protester holds a portrait of Mahsa Amini during a demonstration in support of Amini, a young Iranian woman who died after being arrested in Tehran by the Islamic Republic's morality police, on Istiklal avenue in Istanbul on September 20, 2022.

Source : AFP

UPDATE: Amid mass protests continuing since the death of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini while in custody of the morality police in September, several media reports earlier this month quoted Iran’s attorney general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri as saying that the state’s morality police had been “abolished”. There are, however, question marks about the claim now, with no Iranian official confirming the closure of the morality police.

New Delhi: Protest-hit Iran has abolished its morality police, news agency AFP reported, citing a statement by Iran's "prosecutor general".

The development comes after more than two months of protests triggered by the arrest of Mahsa Amini for allegedly violating the country's strict female dress code.

According to the AFP report, which cited local media, Iran's Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said on Saturday the parliament and the judiciary are reviewing the decades-old hijab law, which sparked the 3-month-long protests in the country. The agitation, according to the United Nations, is believed to have claimed more than 300 lives so far.

The protests, which started in September this year across the country, were sparked by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police after she arrested for allegedly breaching the country's strict dress code for women.

The furious Iranian protesters from all layers of society burned their head coverings, shouted anti-government slogans and tossed turbans off Muslim clerics' heads to demonstrate their defiance, which is now seen as the biggest challenge to Iran's leaders since the 1979 revolution. 

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

#BREAKING Protest-hit Iran abolishes morality police: prosecutor general pic.twitter.com/Ju4rSHKZkx

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) December 4, 2022

"Both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the issue)" of whether the law that requires women to cover their heads needs any changes, Montazeri said, as reported by AFP. 

ISNA reported that he did not specify what could be modified in the law by the two bodies, which are largely in the hands of conservatives.

The review team met on Wednesday with parliament's cultural commission "and will see the results in a week or two", the attorney general said.

In the meantime, a top state security organisation said that 200 individuals, including security forces personnel, had died in the unrest, a figure much lower than that reported by the world body and rights organisations, as per news agency Reuters.

More On It: Iran: Hijab Law Under Review, Says Attorney General. State Body Reports 200 Deaths In Protests

(Inputs from agencies)