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Iranian shops shut their doors in several cities on Monday, following calls for a three-day nationwide strike from protesters seeking the fall of clerical rulers, while the head of the judiciary blamed what he called "rioters" for threatening shopkeepers. Iran has been rocked by nationwide unrest following the death of Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini on Sept. 16 in police custody, posing one of the strongest challenges to the Islamic Republic since the 1979 revolution. For more on the unprecedented civil uprising, FRANCE 24 is joined by Tara Kangarlou, Author, Award-Winning Journalist and Professor at Georgetown University.
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An Iranian lawmaker says the government is “paying attention to the people’s demands.”. But many remain skeptical in the face of reports that the regime’s so-called morality police has been disbanded. 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody back on September 16th. She was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women and her death sparked a wave of nationwide protests. Listen to the Iran foreign minister followed by the Iranian president speaking over the weekend. FRANCE 24's International Affairs editor Angela Diffley gives us her expertise.
French street artist JR's performance to support women's rights protests in Iran
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Hundreds of people have helped the French street artist JR with a performance to show art is supporting the ongoing women's rights protest movement in Iran. The volunteers standing to represent the hair of 16 year old Nika Shah-karami who went missing and died after attending a protest in Tehran. The artwork part of a series of works by JR and Iranian artist at the For Freedoms art collective on Roosevelt Island. Listen to participant's opinion.
Iranian press sceptical about claim morality police has been abolished
Issued on: 05/12/2022 -
01:55 An Iranian policewoman prepares to patrol the streets of Tehran in this file photo taken in July 2007. © Behrouz Mehri, AFP
Even some of the reformist newspapers raised questions about the news.
Iran has been rocked by more than two months of protests triggered by the death of Kurdish Iranian Mahsa Amini, 22, following her arrest by the Tehran morality police for allegedly violating the country's strict female dress code.
In an apparent gesture to the protesters, Prosecutor General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said the "morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary and have been abolished by those who created them," in comments carried by the ISNA news agency Sunday.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution that overthrew Iran's US-backed monarchy, authorities have monitored adherence to the strict dress code for women as well as men.
The morality police – known formally as the Gasht-e Ershad or "Guidance Patrol" – were established to "spread the culture of modesty and hijab".
They began patrols in 2006, and their role has always been controversial.
"The end of the morality police," read a headline by the reformist daily Sazandegi. It reported that "after 80 days of protests caused by the morality police, the prosecutor general announces its abolition".
The Sharq newspaper, however, asked on its front page: "Is this the end of the patrols?"
"While the prosecutor general has affirmed that the morality police have been abolished, the police public relations department has refused to confirm this abolition," it reported.
The paper added that the Tehran police head of public relations, Colonel Ali Sabahi, when asked about Montazeri's statement, had replied: "Don't even mention that you called us.
"The moment isn't appropriate for this kind of discussion... and the police will speak about it when it is appropriate," Sabahi reportedly told Sharq.
Another reformist publication, Arman Melli, questioned whether this really was "the end of the morality police?"
A fourth newspaper, Ham Mihan, emphasised: "The judicial authority made a declaration but no other authority has announced the dissolution of the morality police."
(AFP)
Iran activists, US brush off claim morality police abolished
Story by AFP • Yesterday
Iran's attorney general was quoted as saying the special police unit that enforces dress rules in Iran had been closed down
But campaigners were sceptical about his comments, which appeared to be an impromptu response to a question at a conference rather than a clearly signposted announcement by the interior ministry.
"Unless they remove all legal restrictions on women's dress and the laws controlling citizens' private lives, this is just a PR move," Roya Boroumand, co-founder of the US-based Abdorrahman Boroumand Center rights group, told AFP.
Iran's dress code requires women to cover their heads and to wear long clothes
There were also calls on social media for a three-day strike in Iran, culminating Wednesday on the annual Student Day, nearly three months into a nationwide wave of unrest sparked by the death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini.
Morality police officers had arrested Amini, 22, in Tehran for allegedly flouting Iran's strict dress code demanding women wear modest clothing and the hijab headscarf.
"Nothing we have seen suggests Iran's leadership is improving its treatment of women and girls or ceasing the violence it inflicts on peaceful protesters," the US State Department said.
Germany's foreign ministry said Iranian protesters "want to live freely and in self-determination", and disbanding the morality police, "if it is implemented, won't change that".
Amini's death on September 16 triggered women-led protests that have spiralled into the biggest challenge to the regime since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Hundreds of Iranians, including some members of the security forces, have been killed.
A woman walks past a closed shop along Satarkhan Street in Iran's capital Tehran, after calls on social media for a three-day strike
- 'Create societal fear' -
Abolishing the force, activists argued, would mark no change to Iran's headscarf policy -- a key ideological pillar for its clerical leadership -- but rather a switch in tactics on enforcing it.
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And scrapping the units would be "probably too little too late" for the protesters who now demand outright regime change, Boroumand said.
"Nothing prevents other law enforcement" bodies from policing "the discriminatory laws", she noted.
The morality police have been a familiar sight since 2006 when they were introduced during the presidency of the ultra-conservative Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
But the rules, including the headscarf, had been strictly enforced well before then by the clerical leadership in charge after the fall of the secularist shah in 1979.
It was anger over the obligatory headscarf rule that sparked the first protests following the death of Amini, whose family says died from a blow to her head sustained in custody. The authorities dispute this.
But the protest movement, fed also by years of anger over economic grievances and political repression, is now marked by calls for an end to the Islamic republic led by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Norway-based group Iran Human Rights (IHR) told AFP on Monday that at least 504 people had been executed in Iran this year -- far more than in the whole of last year.
Reports from Tehran have suggested the feared morality police vans had already become much less common or even vanished after the protests broke out.
According to witnesses, numerous women in the fashionable north of Tehran as well as in the more modest and traditional south of the city are now going with their heads uncovered in signs of protest.
- 'Civil disobedience' -
"The alleged suspension of Iran's morality police doesn't mean anything," argued Omid Memarian of the group Democracy for the Arab World Now, citing "the massive level of women's civil disobedience".
He described the mandatory headscarf as "one of the pillars of the Islamic republic", and abolishing it "would mean a fundamental change in the Islamic republic's identity and existence".
Montazeri's declaration and the confusion that ensued were seen as a sign of the disquiet within the regime over how to handle the protests, which continue despite a crackdown that the IHR said has left at least 448 people dead.
Universities have been among the protest locations, and ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi is expected to visit two campuses in Tehran on Student Day, Wednesday, state news agency IRNA reported.
Conservative newspapers in Iran on Monday ignored the prosecutor general's comment, with only reformist dailies putting the issue on their front page.
"Is this the end of the patrols?" the Sharq newspaper asked, noting the police public relations had not confirmed it.
Memarian said it was an example of "deceptive moves the Islamic republic employs at times of desperation" and warned that "other restrictive policies and measures" may follow.
The hijab is "still compulsory", said Shadi Sadr, co-founder of London based group Justice for Iran. While the protests started over Amini's death, she predicted, "Iranians won't rest until the regime is gone."
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