An Iranian lawmaker said on Sunday that the Iranian government was “paying attention to the real demands of the people,” state media reported, a day after a senior official suggested shutting down the country’s morality police, whose behavior has helped unleash months of protests.
The role of the moral police, which enforces headscarf laws, has come under close scrutiny since Mahsa’s death in mid-September.
Amini was arrested on suspicion of violating the Islamic Republic’s strict dress code. His death unleashed a wave of unrest that turned into calls for the overthrow of Iran’s clerical rulers.
Iranian prosecutor Mohammad Jaafar Montazeri said on Saturday that the morality police had been “closed down,” the semi-official ISNA news agency reported.
The agency did not provide details and state media did not report the alleged decision.
In a report released by the same agency on Sunday, MP Nizamuddin Mousavi indicated a less confrontational approach to the protests.
“The administration and parliament have insisted that meeting the people’s economic demand is basically the best way to achieve stability and deal with the riots,” he said, after a closed-door meeting with several senior Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi.
The Associated Press was unable to confirm the current status of the controversial security force, set up in 2005 with a mission to arrest people who violate the country’s Islamic dress code.
Since September, a decrease in the number of morality police officers and an increase in the number of women walking in public without headscarves, contrary to Iranian law, have been reported in Iranian cities.
Montazeri, the chief prosecutor, did not provide further details on the future of the morality police or whether its closure will be permanent and nationwide. But he added that the Iranian judiciary “will continue to monitor society-wide behavior.”
In a report by Iran’s Students News Agency (ISNA) on Friday, Montazeri said the government was reviewing the compulsory hijab law.
“We are working quickly on the hijab issue and trying our best to find a calculated solution to deal with this phenomenon that hurts everyone’s heart,” Montazeri said, without giving details.
Saturday’s announcement may signal an attempt to appease the public and find a way to end the protests, in which at least 470 people have been killed, according to rights groups.
More than 18,000 people were arrested during the protests and the violent crackdown that followed, according to Human Rights Activists in Iran, a group that monitors the demonstrations.
Ali Alfoneh, a senior fellow at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, said Montazeri’s statement about shutting down the morality police could be an attempt to quell domestic unrest without making any real concessions to protesters.
“The secular middle class hates the organization (the moral police) for limiting personal freedoms,” Alfoneh told the Associated Press. On the other hand, the “socially conservative underprivileged class resents how it has not implemented hijab legislation” in the wealthiest areas of Iran’s cities.
When asked about Montazeri’s statement, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian did not give a direct answer.
“Be assured that in Iran, within the framework of democracy and freedom, which is very clearly present in Iran, everything is going well,” he added, speaking from Belgrade, Serbia.
The anti-government demonstrations, now in their third month, show no signs of stopping despite the violent repression.
Protesters say they are fed up with decades of social and political repression, including strict dress codes imposed on women. Young women continue to play a prominent role in the protests, removing the mandatory Islamic headscarf to express their opposition to clerical rule.
After the protests erupted, the Iranian government was not ready to respond to the protesters’ demands. He continued to crack down on protesters, sentencing at least seven arrested protesters to death.
The authorities continue to attribute the unrest to hostile foreign powers, without providing evidence.
But in recent days, Iranian state-run media platforms have seemed to adopt a more conciliatory tone, expressing a desire to address the Iranian people’s problems.
