Iranian state media seems to dismiss reports morality police has been abolished

Following Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri's statement that Iran's morality police is being shut down, Iranian state media has come out against the statement and said that the interior ministry oversees the force, not the judiciary. The ministry did not confirm if the force is being shut down.

Meanwhile, on Sunday, news agency ISNA reported lawmaker Nezamoddin Mousavi as saying Iran’s government is “paying attention to the people’s real demands".

After a closed meeting with several senior Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi, Mousavi said, “Both the administration and parliament insisted that paying attention to the people’s demand that is mainly economic is the best way for achieving stability and confronting the riots."

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Also Read |After two months of nationwide anti-hijab protests, Iran finally disbands morality police

However, he did not say anything about shutting down the morality police. Top Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran would not change the Islamic Republic's mandatory hijab policy.

Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, when asked about Montazeri's statement during a visit to Serbia, did not give a clear reponse. “Be sure that in Iran, within the framework of democracy and freedom, which very clearly exists in Iran, everything is going very well,” he said.

Montazeri, according to a report by ISNA on Friday, had said that the government was reviewing the mandatory hijab law. “We are working fast on the issue of hijab and we are doing our best to come up with a thoughtful solution to deal with this phenomenon that hurts everyone’s heart,” said Montazeri.

Iran's morality police grabbed the limelight after Kurdish-Iranian woman Mahsa Amini died in police custody after being arrested by the morality police for not wearing the hijab properly. The country has been rocked by protests for over two months now, with people demanding scrapping the hijab law.

Protesters on Sunday called for a three-day strike this week, including a rally to Tehran's Azadi (Freedom) Square on Wednesday, as per social media posts. President Raisi is also due to address students in Tehran on the same day to mark Student Day in Iran.

The nationwide protests have led to several people being killed and many more arrests. The activist HRANA news agency said 470 protesters had been killed as of Saturday, including 64 minors. It said 18,210 demonstrators were arrested and 61 members of the security forces were killed.

(With inputs from agencies)

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