'Pure propaganda' say activists, as suspense prevails over abolition of morality police in Iran

Arbil: Months after protests, Iran’s controversial morality police, tasked to enforce Islamic dress code in the country, has been disbanded. The announcement was made by Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, but not many seem to be happy with it as there has been no confirmation from the Interior Ministry.

Interior Ministry oversees morality police

As per the Iranian state media, the interior ministry oversees the force and not the judiciary. Interestingly, there has been no confirmation on abolishing the morality police.

Hours after Montazeri’s announcement, Iranian lawmaker Nezamoddin Mousavi said that the government is “paying attention to the people’s real demands.”

Mousavi’s statement came after a meeting with several senior Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi.

“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,” Mousavi said.

There was no mention of shutting down the morality police in Iran. Top officials of the country have been persistently saying that Tehran would not change the Islamic Republic’s “mandatory hijab policy”.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian did not comment clearly on Montazeri’s statement and said, “Be sure that in Iran, within the framework of democracy and freedom, which very clearly exists in Iran, everything is going very well.”

What did Mohammad Jafar Montazeri say?

Montazeri said that the Iran government is reviewing the mandatory hijab policy. He went on say, the morality police “was abolished by the same authorities who installed it.”

“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,” he added.

‘Pure propaganda’

Iranian journalist and activist Masih Alinejad that the announcement of Iran abolishing morality police “was pure propaganda by the regime to calm the ongoing anti-regime uprisings.”

2-The source of today’s news turned out to be poorly researched. Why wasn’t there proper fact-checking? Why did the international community so readily consume this poor journalism?

This was pure propaganda by the regime to calm the ongoing anti-regime uprisings

— Masih Alinejad