Is the protest that has agitated Iran for months now bearing fruit? After months of mobilization in Tehran and in several major cities of the country, the government has announced the abolition of the morality police, whose role is pointed out in the death of the young Mahsa Amini. This unit “has nothing to do with the judiciary, and it has been abolished by those who created it,” said Iranian Attorney General Mohammad Jafar on Saturday evening in the holy city of Qom.
The announcement, which could be seen as a gesture towards protesters, comes after authorities decided on Saturday to revise a 1983 law on compulsory veiling in Iran, imposed four years after the 1979 Islamic revolution.
Established under ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the morality police were officially created to “spread the culture of decency and hijab”. This section, made up of men in green uniforms and women wearing black chadors, patrolled the cities to check compliance with the dress code imposed by the Islamic Republic.
“Women arrested, sentenced to lashes”
“This police inspired a blue fear, it was made up of extremely aggressive people”, had explained to the Parisian, the sociologist and political scientist, specialist in Iran, Mahnaz Shirali. “Women were regularly arrested and sentenced to lashes because the morality police considered that their veil was not in conformity”.
Already under fire from critics, the morality police have been violently decried, after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, in Tehran accused of not having respected the strict dress code in the Islamic Republic. His death, three days after the arrest, triggered a wave of demonstrations during which women, the spearhead of the protest, removed and burned their headscarves, calling for freedom.