Editor’s note: A version of this article first appeared in CNN’s Middle East Newsletter. For this newsletter, three times a week he features the largest articles in the region. SIGN UP HERE.
CNN
—
Comments by Iranian officials suggesting that the country’s notorious morality police Being closed raised more questions than answers.
A hasty explanation by state media attempting to refute the official’s comments was soon followed, and a backlash on social media by activists denied the so-called victory and even denounced it as a “PR stunt” by the government. Iranian regime Silence the protesters.
Experts cautioned against accepting pledges to repeal the moral police and the hijab laws it is enforcing, noting that governments often make empty promises to citizens in a desperate attempt to calm fears. ing.
At a religious congress on Saturday in the city of Qom, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said Iran’s morality police had been “abolished.” The comment was quickly picked up by the international media, with some welcoming the “announcement”: A victory for the Iranians who have been protesting the government for months.
Montazeri’s comments responded to a reporter who asked whether the country’s morality police, or “instruction patrol,” had been disbanded. It was discontinued from the same place it was started. ”
The comments may have been misunderstood, and the tone of the state media quickly changed.
State media on Sunday were keen to downplay Montazelli’s comments, saying the moral police did not fall under the jurisdiction of the judiciary.
Arabic-language Al Alam state television claimed that foreign media portrayed Montazeri’s comments as “the Islamic Republic’s retreat from its stance on the hijab and religious morality as a result of the protests.” His comment was that the moral police are not directly related to the judiciary.
“Islamic Republic of Iran officials have not said the guidance patrols have been closed,” Al-Alam said on Sunday afternoon.
The decision to dismantle the moral police was technically Cultural Revolution Supreme Councilwas founded by Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini in the early 1980s and is now headed by President Ebrahim Raisi.
CNN has reached out to Iran’s Interior Ministry and the Supreme Council for the Cultural Revolution for comment.
Montazeri’s comments on the Morality Police reported just two days after reformist Entehab said he said Iran’s parliament and judiciary were considering the country’s mandatory hijab law, which has been in place since 1983. issued later.
The Morality Police, a law enforcement agency with power, weapons and access to detention centers, is a major object of complaint for Iranians. The Morality Police, which is notorious for terrorizing citizens when enforcing the country’s conservative rules, has been a major enforcement tool in enforcing Iran’s hijab laws.
The Morality Police burst into the international spotlight in September when 22-year-old Masa Amini died three days after being arrested by police and taken to a “re-education” center. This group is licensed by the United States and the European Union.
But since the demonstrators took to the streets, the moral police have virtually disappeared from Tehran’s streets, greatly diminishing the state’s ability to enforce dress codes for women, eyewitnesses say.
Iranian-American journalist and political analyst Negar Mortazavi told CNN on Monday, “There are far more images of women walking around in public without hijabs than we’ve seen before September of this year. I see photos and videos,” he said.
Sajadpur says enforcing the hijab may no longer be a priority as Iranian security forces scramble to quell the protests.
“It’s not because their ideology has changed,” he told CNN.
The lack of moral police on the streets also cast doubt on its relevance. Their abolition would certainly count as a victory for the protesters, but experts say there are other deeper grievances driving protesters to the streets.
“When dictatorships see they are in trouble, they start promising their citizens that they will change.” Written by Karim SajadpurSenior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington, DC.
“These empty promises tend to bolster rather than quell public demand for radical change,” he wrote on Twitter. There seems to be
U.S.-based Iranian analyst Omid Memalyan said the moral police had “already become irrelevant” following the ongoing protests. Such a move seems desperate when it shouts, “The regime is unable to address real grievances.” he wrote on twitter.
Others worry that the Iranian regime may simply “rebrand” the Morality Police to distance themselves from its ominous name while maintaining strict controls over the compulsory hijab.
Mortazabi said, “In some ways it has been interpreted as a play on words, because he says there is no moral police or induction patrols.” I did
Mortazavi went on to say that the moral police had become “so notorious” that no official was “willing to take on that responsibility” and that it was unclear “how sustainable it would be in the long run”. rice field.
“It goes back to how the enforcement of this law, which is still on paper, is stopped or changed,” she said. Will you come back in any way?”
