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Iran Entangles With Alleged Police Removal Of Morale In Attempt To Quiet Protests

2022-12-06T11:09:25.347Z


After the attorney general announced the disappearance of the security force, his spokesman denies it and announces "more modern methods" than the patrols that impose the veil on women


The protests in Iran do not stop.

Groups of Iranian activists have called a three-day general strike starting this Monday, which will culminate on Wednesday, when Student's Day is celebrated.

This new mobilization takes place in the midst of controversy over the contradictory statements by high-ranking officials of the regime regarding the supposed elimination of the morality police, the unpopular security body to which many Iranians attribute the death in police custody on September 16 of Mahsa Amini.

The 22-year-old girl had been detained by agents of that police force for showing part of her hair under her veil, and her death triggered the popular uprising against the authorities.

Two days after the attorney general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, announced the suppression of the morality police, Seyyed Ali Khanmohammadi, spokesman for that body, denied that it is going to disappear, according to the

Jamaran News website.

He admitted that "his mission was over" — his agents' main task was to enforce the Iranian regime's dress code on women — but insisted on the need to enforce Islamic law.

And he affirmed that, from now on, the morality police will use “more modern methods” than the street patrols with which they forced Iranian women to cover themselves with the hijab.

In a 119-page document titled "Hijab and Chastity," released in August by the IranWire website, the morality police detailed various measures to force Iranian women to wear the headscarf.

Among them, mention was made of the use of security cameras to identify women who violated the law that, since 1983, requires women over the age of nine to cover their hair.

Hossein Jalali, a member of the Culture Commission of Parliament, alluded to this project on Monday, according to the BBC channel in the Farsi language, in a meeting he held with women affiliated with the regime in the city of Qom: "The hijab and chastity plan It will be applied in the next two weeks.

He then emphasized that "the price [to be paid] for not wearing a veil will increase."

In an exchange of emails with EL PAÍS, the US-based expert on Iran Ali Alfoneh interprets that the contradictory statements about the future of this decorum police “may be partly due to poor coordination between the different parts of the bureaucracy government, competition between them, or an attempt by the regime to make a concession to the protesters without appearing to be a concession.”

Alfoneh considers that the announcement is due to the fact that "the regime is no longer systematically applying the hijab law", probably due to the increasing number of Iranians who have decided to do without the garment;

and not so much to an effective dismantling of that security body or to a change in the legislation on the veil.

"Judging by their slogans ['Woman, life, freedom' or 'Death to the dictator'], nothing short of the overthrow of the regime will satisfy the protesters," says the political scientist.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Hossein Amirabdollahian, on Monday evaded confirming whether the morality police have been suppressed.

When questioned during an official visit to Serbia, he limited himself to stating that in "Iran everything is going very well" within the framework of "democracy and freedom".

The repression of the current protests has killed at least 448 protesters, according to the NGO Iran Human Rights, a figure that the authorities reduce to 300. Between 15,000 and 18,000 people have been arrested and six sentenced to death by hanging.

Disbelief

Many Iranians have expressed their disbelief on social networks at the announcement of the alleged end of the security body.

Nilufar Saberi, a 56-year-old Iranian exile in Spain, describes it to this newspaper as "a facelift for the regime to gain time."

Mehdi, the fictitious name of an Iranian expatriate in a European country, does not believe that the morality police will disappear and assures that it is "a rumor to test the ground".

“The veil itself is not our main demand, but the democratization and dismantling of a dictatorial system.

Our demand is a secular society.

However, the veil is a key symbol of this dictatorship and the way in which the regime maintains its dominance over at least 50% of the population," says this Iranian.

Agents of the Iranian security forces guard a Tehran market.WANA NEWS AGENCY (via REUTERS)

Iranian human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr has also downplayed the extent of the alleged suppression of that security force.

The also activist assures in a tweet that we are not facing "great news".

“The hijab is still mandatory and there are other ways to apply that law, such as expulsion from universities,” she adds.

The semi-official Tasnim news agency reported on Monday the closure by court order of an amusement park in Tehran for not respecting the veil legislation.

According to Sadr, the closure was due to the dissemination on social networks of the photo of a cashier of the establishment with her hair uncovered.

The lawyer has denounced that the young woman has been prosecuted for it.

Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam, director of Iran Human Rights, an Oslo-based Iranian organization that documents the crackdown on protests in Iran, says that "even if it's true," this move "means nothing at all."

The hijab laws are “still there”.

“Iranians have been protesting in the streets for more than two and a half months because they do not want an oppressive, incompetent and corrupt regime that has deprived them of their most fundamental rights.

Even if the regime changes the laws on the hijab, it will not be enough, ”he concludes.

The activist argues that the Iranian authorities are under enormous pressure from inside and outside Iran.

“The barrier of fear that they have ruled over for over 40 years has collapsed.

They are trying to raise it again and for that they need people to stop protesting.

They shoot at them, arrest them, sentence them to death, but they still haven't succeeded.

That announcement did not get any attention inside Iran, because people know the regime very well.

It only got attention outside,” explains the director of the NGO.

This Sunday, the same day that the supposed end of the morality police was known, deplores the activist, the Iranian authorities executed four young people.

"Nobody wrote about them," he concludes.

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Source: elparis

All news articles on 2022-12-06

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