The actions of the units who enforce the country’s conservative dress code for women has resulted in violence ,and widespread arrests against ever widening protests….
The countries religious leaders are under huge pressure from the protests whose images continue to leak out to the rest of the world….
Iran has also been under economic sanctions that have crippled their economy….
Anyone who thinks the current government is going change is dreaming….
More than 400 people have been killed, and more than 15,000 arrested, in the crackdown on demonstrations that have cascaded into broad calls to overthrow Iran’s clerical leaders, according to rights groups. Given heavy censorship and limitations on reporting, the full extent of casualties is difficult to assess.
The disbandment of the force responsible for enforcing the mandatory hijab, even if nominal, would indicate a level of reaction to the demands of the demonstrators not yet seen. But experts warned that the remarks by Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, made in response to questions at a news conference, should be taken with a dose of skepticism.
“The morality police has nothing to do with the judiciary, and it was abolished by those who created it,” Montazeri said Saturday during a conspiracy-theory-laden speech blaming the anti-government unrest on Western countries, Iranian state-backed media outlets reported. “But of course the judiciary will continue to watch over behavioral actions in the society.”
He appeared to be referring to the relative absence of the morality police on the streets since protests against Iran’s clerical leaders broke out. An app Iranians initially used to track the roaming patrols has in recent weeks been used to monitor and evade security forces instead….
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But Montazeri’s remarks, while affirming that the morality police were not under the judiciary’s purview, were not an official confirmation of disbandment, which would require higher-level approval.
Montazeri’s “statement should not be read as final,” said Sanam Vakil, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House, a London think tank. No formal announcement has been made by top law enforcement officials or clerical leaders. “The Islamic Republic oftentimes test runs ideas by tossing them out for discussion,” she said….
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Initial reactions were mixed, abroad and among protest movement sympathizers online: Some mocked the move and others celebrated it as an apparent victory.
“They really think it makes a difference if they shut down the morality police,” one user wrote on Twitter. “Haven’t they realized our target is the whole system?”….
image…AP