“The moral police has nothing to do with the judiciary and was abolished by the authorities that created it,” Iran’s attorney general clarified
Its abolition infamous moral police by the competent authorities, announced Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, as reported by the Iranian Student News Agency Isna today.
“The moral police has nothing to do with the judiciary and was abolished by the authorities that created it,” Montazeri clarified on Saturday night from the holy city of Qom.
This is a historic step for the conservative Islamic country.
The morality police, known as Ghast-e-Ershad (orientation patrols) were established under Iran’s ultraconservative president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “to spread the culture of modesty and hijab”, and was a source of fear and terror for citizens.
It consists of men in green uniform and women wearing black chador, a garment that covers the head and upper body.
This police started its patrols in 2006.
In a historic decision/retraction, the authorities in Iran asked the judiciary and parliament yesterday Saturday to revise a 1983 law Ayatollah Khomeinifor the mandatory use of the headscarf in order to find a way out of the protest movement that has erupted for more than two months in the country.
Iran has been facing daily protests since the death on September 16 by Mahsa Amini, of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman three days after she was arrested by the morality police for not wearing her headscarf properly.
Since then Iranian women have taken to the streets and some they took off or burned their headscarves in public.
A total of 448 protesters have been killed since the protests began, according to the Norway-based non-governmental organization Iran Human Rights.
Besides, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council announced yesterday that “more than 200 people”, civilians and members of the order forces, have been killed, while on Monday General Amirali Hazizadeh of the Revolutionary Guards had spoken of more than 300 dead.
Besides, thousands of people have been arrested. Yesterday another film actress, Mitra Hazar, was arrested at her home, because she recently posted on her Instagram account a video of the demonstrations that took place in Berlin in October in solidarity with the movement in Iran.
Mandila: A sensitive issue
Yesterday Saturday Iran’s Attorney General stated that “Parliament and judicial authorities are working” on the subject of the obligation of the headscarfwithout specifying whether the legislation might be amended.
The issue is particularly sensitive in Iran, with two opposing camps: conservatives who insist on the 1983 law and progressives who want women to be able to choose whether or not to wear the headscarf.
The headscarf became compulsory in Iran four years after the Islamic revolution in 1979. The morality police were created to “spread the culture of modesty and wearing the headscarf”.
According to the 1983 law, women in Iran — local and foreign — regardless of religion, must wear headscarves and loose clothing in public.
As of July 5, a new law “on headscarves and modesty in the country” promoted by Iranian President Ebrahim Raishi imposed new restrictions on women: the headscarf must cover not only their hair, but also the neck and shoulders.
However, during a press conference held yesterday in Tehran, Raisi appeared to be open to possible changes in the legislation: “Our Constitution has values ​​and principles that are stable and unshakable (…) but there are ways of applying the Constitution that can be reviewed,” he said.
They defied the authorities
After Amini’s death and the protests that followed, more and more women started going around without the headscarf, mainly in the northern part of Tehran.
On September 24, a week after the protests began, the main reformist party in Iran called on the authorities to remove the obligation of the headscarf.
The Islamic People’s Union of Iran, founded by close associates of reformist former president Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005), announced that it had “requested” the authorities to “prepare the legal tools that will pave the way for the annulment of the of the obligation of the headscarf”, according to a statement from the party at the end of September.
The party also asked the Iranian authorities to “officially announce the end of the moral police” and to “allow peaceful demonstrations”.
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