DUBAI (Reuters) – Iran’s attorney general announced on Sunday that the morality police, which led to the arrest of Mahsa Amini, a young Iranian Kurd whose death sparked an unprecedented wave of protests in the country, had been abolished. .
The Ministry of the Interior, however, did not confirm this information. State media clarified that the attorney general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, did not oversee the police force.
Senior Iranian officials have repeatedly said Tehran will not change its dress policy for women, which mandates the wearing of the veil, despite eleven weeks of protests.
Hundreds of people have been killed since September in clashes with law enforcement that erupted after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, arrested by vice squad for wearing an illegal veil. This is the largest wave of protest since the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.
Protesters called for a three-day strike and mobilization in Azadi Square, Tehran, on Wednesday, according to posts on Twitter.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi is due to address students in Tehran on the same day to mark Students’ Day in Iran.
470 DEAD, ACCORDING TO AN ASSOCIATION
The militant HRANA news agency said 470 protesters were killed in the clashes, including 64 minors. She added that 18,210 protesters were arrested and 61 policemen were killed.
Authorities are instead reporting a death toll of 200, according to the Mizan news agency.
Some Iranians say on social media and in some newspapers they have seen morality police officers less often in recent weeks as authorities apparently seek to avoid further clashes.
The words of Mohammad Jafar Montazeri concerning the dissolution of this brigade were published by a press agency belonging to the Iranian Ministry of Labor.
“The authority that created the morality police closed it down,” he reportedly said. He added that this brigade was not under the authority of the judiciary, which “continues to monitor the behavior of Iranians at the community level.”
According to the state television channel Al Alam, the words of the attorney general do not clearly say that this section will be dissolved.
EXECUTIONS
Four people accused of cooperating with Israeli intelligence agency Mossad were also executed on Sunday, state media reported.
They were arrested in June, before the current wave of protests, according to the Tasnim news agency.
The Islamic Republic regularly accuses Israel of carrying out covert operations on its soil. Tehran also believes that the Israeli and Western intelligence services are behind the latest events.
On Wednesday, the Mehr news agency said the four men had been sentenced to death “for cooperating with the intelligence services of the Zionist regime and for kidnapping”.
Three other people were sentenced to prison terms ranging from five to 10 years after being found guilty of crimes including undermining national security, aiding in kidnapping and possessing illegal weapons.
(Report by Dubai Newsroom, French version Caroline Pailliez)