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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (right) with Ahmad-Resa Radan, the new chief of police in Iran
Photo: AFP
More than three months after the protests began in Iran, the leadership in Tehran has fired the country's police chief.
Hussein Ashtari was deposed on Saturday by Head of State Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Isna news agency reported.
A reason for the change at the top of the police force was not given.
However, Ashtari came under criticism after 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini died in police custody in September.
Amini was arrested by the so-called vice police because a few strands of hair were visible under the obligatory headscarf.
Her death triggered the ongoing protests in the country, which are directed against the government's repressive course and the Islamic system of rule.
According to official figures, hundreds of people were killed during the protests, including members of the security forces.
Thousands of people were arrested.
Successor is on the US sanctions list
Ashtari has always maintained that the police were not to blame for Amini's death.
However, critics believe that the young woman was beaten by police officers and died of a brain hemorrhage.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is also the spiritual leader and the country's supreme commander of the Iranian armed forces, has now appointed the previous deputy chief Ahmad-Resa Radan to head the Iranian police force.
He is known for his radical attitudes.
In particular, he always campaigned for women to strictly adhere to the Islamic dress code.
In his opinion, young men should also not follow western hairstyle trends and be arrested if they violate them.
Radan has been on a US sanctions list for 12 years for human rights violations.
According to a statement, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei instructed the police to "improve their skills" and "train special forces for various security areas".
In the statement, he also expresses himself "grateful and satisfied" about Ashtari's eight years of service.
Two men who took part in the protest movement against the country's leadership were executed in Iran on Saturday.
They allegedly killed a member of the security forces.
According to the judiciary, it is Mohammad Mehdi Karami and Seyyed Mohammad Hosseini.
The EU denounced the renewed executions as "another sign of the violent suppression of the protests".
wit/dpa/AFP