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An Iranian official’s comment signaled that the country’s notorious moral police was closed raised more questions than it answered.
Hasty excuses by state media to refute the official’s comments were quickly followed, along with social media rebuttals by activists denying the so-called victory and even denounced it as a “PR ploy” of the government. Iranian regime to silence the protesters.
Experts have warned against accepting pledges to repeal the moral police or the hijab laws it seeks to enforce, noting that regimes often make empty promises to citizens in a desperate attempt to quell the unrest.
During a religious conference on Saturday in the city of Qom, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said that Iran’s ethics police were being “deleted,” a comment quickly picked up by international media outlets, a comment that was quickly picked up by the international media. Some hailed the “announcement” as a victory for Iranians who had opposed the government for months.
Montazeri’s comments came in response to a reporter who asked if the country’s ethics police – or “guided patrols” – had been disbanded. The attorney general was quoted by an Iranian state media outlet as saying: “Ethical police have nothing to do with the judiciary. It was repealed from the same place it was launched.
It is possible that the comment was misinterpreted and the tone of the state media quickly changed.
On Sunday, state media wanted to downplay Montazeri’s comments, saying the ethics police were not within the jurisdiction of the judiciary.
State broadcaster Al-Alam in Arabic claimed foreign media described Montazeri’s comments as “part of the Islamic Republic withdrawing from its stance on the hijab and religion”. religious morality due to the protests”, but that is all that can be understood from his remarks that the ethics police are not directly involved with the judiciary.
Al-Alam said Sunday afternoon: “No official of the Islamic Republic of Iran has said that the Guide Patrol has been closed.
The decision to dismantle the ethical police technically lies in Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolutionan agency established in the early 1980s by Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, and today headed by President Ebrahim Raisi.
CNN has reached out to Iran’s Interior Ministry and the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution for comment.
Montazeri’s comments on the ethics police come just two days after the pro-reform news agency Entekhab reported he said Iran’s parliament and judiciary were reviewing the country’s mandatory head covering law. , which has existed since 1983.
A powerful law enforcement agency, weapons and detention centers, the ethical police are a major point of grievance for Iranians. Famous for terrorizing citizens as they enforce the country’s conservative norms, the ethics police are the main force in enforcing Iran’s hooded laws.
The ethics police made headlines internationally in September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died three days after being arrested by the force and taken to a “re-education” center. The group is sanctioned by the United States and the European Union.
Since the protesters took to the streets, however, witnesses say the ethical police have mostly disappeared from the streets of Tehran, greatly reducing the state’s ability to regulate the dress code. of women.
Iranian-American journalist and political analyst Negar Mortazavi told CNN on Monday, “We see a lot of pictures, photos, videos of women walking around in public places without a hijab on,” he said. much more head start than what we saw before September this year.”
Sadjadpour said that, as Iranian security forces try to quell the protests, the enforcement of headscarves may no longer be a priority.
“It’s not because their ideology has changed,” he told CNN, “but because their repression bandwidth is limited.”
Ethical police’s absence from the streets also raises questions about their involvement. While their repeal is indeed seen as a victory for the protesters, experts say there are other, deeper grievances that drive protesters into the streets.
“When dictatorships knew they were in trouble, they began to promise their citizens that they would change who they were.” Karim Sadjadpour wrotea senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington DC.
“These empty promises tend to encourage rather than quell popular demands for fundamental change,” he wrote on Twitter. “The Iranian regime appears to be entering this phase of its life cycle.”
Omid Memarian, a US-based Iran analyst, said ethical police “have become irrelevant” following the ongoing protests. “As people chant across the country, ‘The Islamic Republic should go,’ such moves seem desperate. The regime’s inability to resolve real grievances,” he wrote on Twitter.
Others worry that the Iranian regime may simply “rebrand” the ethics police, in an effort to steer clear of its ominous name while maintaining tight control over the must wear a headscarf.
“In a way, it’s interpreted as a play on words because he’s basically saying there’s no moral police or guiding patrol,” Mortazavi said. “In a way, it has been replaced or renamed to the public safety police.”
Mortazavi went on to say that the ethics police had become “so notorious” that no official was “ready to take responsibility for it” and it was unclear “how long it would last”.
“It goes back to how enforcement of the law that is still on this paper will be stopped or changed,” she said. “Either it will come back after a different brand or a different name or other methods.”
