Iran has abolished its morality police after more than two months of protests sparked by the arrest of Mahsa Amini for allegedly violating the country’s strict women’s dress code, local media reported. Women-led protests swept Iran after the 22-year-old Iranian, of Kurdish origin, died on September 16, three days after she was arrested in Tehran by morality police.
“The moral police has nothing to do with the judicial system” and has been abolished, the ISNA news agency quoted the chief prosecutor, Mohammad Jaafar Montazeri, as saying. His comment came at a religious conference, where he responded to an attendee who asked “why the moral police are shutting down”.
The morality police, known officially as Gasht-e Ershad or “Guidance Patrol”, was created by hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to “spread the culture of modesty and the hijab”, requiring women to cover their heads. Squads began patrolling in 2006.
The announcement of their removal came a day after Montazeri said “both parliament and the judiciary are working” (on) whether the law requiring women to cover their heads should be changed. On Saturday, President Ebrahim Raisi said in televised comments , that Iran’s republican and Islamic foundations are constitutionally entrenched, “but there are methods of implementing the constitution that can be flexible.” The hijab became mandatory four years after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy and established the Islamic Republic Iran Moral police officers initially issued warnings before they began cracking down on and arresting women 15 years ago Patrols are usually made up of men in green uniforms and women wearing black chadors, garments that cover their heads and upper bodies .The role of the police has evolved, but it has always been controversial, even among presidential candidates.
Dress codes gradually changed, especially under former moderate President Hassan Rouhani, when it became common to see women in skinny jeans and wearing loose, colorful headscarves. But in July of this year, his successor, the ultraconservative Raizi, called for the mobilization of “all state institutions to implement the headscarf law.” Raisi at the time charged that “the enemies of Iran and Islam have targeted the cultural and religious values of society by spreading corruption.”
However, many women continued to break the rules, letting their headscarves slide over their shoulders or wearing tight pants, especially in big cities.
Saudi Arabia, Iran’s regional rival, also used the moral police to enforce women’s dress codes and other rules of conduct. But since 2016, it has been removed as the Sunni Muslim kingdom seeks to shed its harsh image.
Photo: CNBC
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