Iran suspends morality police, hijab law goes under review

Middle East, News December 5, 2022 , by IRIA No Comments

Iran’s attorney general announced that the administration has decided to suspend the morality police in the wake of continued protests that started two months ago after the death of the 22-year-old girl Mahsa Amini in the custody of morality police.

“Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary” and have been abolished, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted saying at Iran’s state-owned media outlet. His comment came at a religious conference where he responded to a participant’s question about the reports regarding shutting down the morality police.

Iran’s morality police, also known as Gasht-e Ershad or “Guidance Patrol”, was established under the hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The morality police were given the task to “spread the culture of modesty and hijab”. The hijab rule or mandatory head covering for women was introduced in 1983, however, it was not until 2006 that the morality police was established to implement the rule.

The morality police had been responsible for maintaining the religious dress code, especially among women. Initially, the morality police only issued warnings, but later it started to crack down against women for not wearing proper attire in public and started arresting women for violating the hijab rule. Arrested women were kept in detainment centers that were meant to ‘reeducate’ them before they would be released.

The 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police in the northwestern Kurdish city of Saqez on September 13, for violating the dress code. She died in a local hospital three days later, after falling into a coma. The police sources said that Amini died after suffering from sudden heart failure, but her family dismissed the claims and alleged that her coma was a result of induced torture.

Since her death, a wave of violent anti-government protests took over all the major cities in Iran. Protestors had been demanding to abolish the morality police and hijab law for women.

^{People light a fire during a protest over the death of Mahsa Amini, a woman who died after being arrested by the Islamic republic’s “morality police”, in Tehran, Iran on September 21, 2022. (Image Credit: WANA/via Reuters)}

Violent clashes between protesters and security forces have been reported in more than 80 cities in Iran including the major cities of Tehran, Tabriz, Karaj, Qom, and Yazd. The government restricted internet coverage and closed many social media platforms, including WhatsApp and Instagram, throughout the country.

According to an activist group in Iran, more than 470 protesters had been killed by the police, including 64 minors. The group also claims that authorities have arrested more than 18,210 protestors so far, while 61 members of law enforcement agencies have died during the protests. Iranian Interior Ministry, however, claims that the death toll is no more than 200.