Global

During a religious conference on Saturday in the city of Qom, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said that the Iranian morality police was being “abolished,” a comment that was quickly picked up by international media outlets, some of which hailed the “announcement” as a victory for Iranians who have been protesting against the government for months.

Montazeri’s comment came in response to a reporter who asked if the country’s morality police – or “guidance patrol” – were being disbanded. The attorney general was quoted by an Iranian state media outlet as saying: “Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary. It was abolished from the same place it was launched.”

Some are saying the Montazeri’s comments are being taken out of context; Iran has no intention of abolishing the force. Still others think this is a PR stunt, in which the government is hoping to quell recent unrest that has been rocking the country.

On Sunday, state media was keen to downplay Montazeri’s comments, saying that the morality police does not fall under the authority of the judiciary.

Arab-language Al-Alam state television claimed foreign media were depicting Montazeri’s comments as “a retreat on the part of the Islamic Republic from its stance on hijab and religious morality as a result of the protests,” but that all that could be understood from his comments was that the morality police were not directly related to the judiciary.

“No official of the Islamic Republic of Iran has said that the Guidance Patrol has been shut,” Al-Alam reiterated on Sunday afternoon.

The decision to dismantle the morality police technically lies with the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution, a body established in the early 1980s by Iran’s first Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, and which is today headed by President Ebrahim Raisi.

Montazeri’s comments about the morality police came just two days after the pro-reform outlet Entekhab reported him saying that Iran’s parliament and judiciary were reviewing the country’s mandatory hijab law, which has been in place since 1983.

A law enforcement body with access to power, arms and detention centers, the morality police are a major point of grievance for Iranians. Notorious for terrorizing citizens as they enforce the country’s conservative rules, the morality police have been the main coercive tool implementing Iran’s hijab law.

The force was cast into the international spotlight in September, when 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died three days after being arrested by the force and taken to a “re-education” center. The group is sanctioned by the United States and the European Union.

In central China, over the weekend, students chanted demands for more transparency about Covid rules, while avoiding the bold slogans that riled the Communist Party a week earlier. In Shanghai, residents successfully negotiated with local authorities to stop a lockdown of their neighborhood. And despite pressure from officials, a team of volunteer lawyers across China, committed to defending the right of citizens to voice their views, fielded anxious calls from protesters.

The recent wave of demonstrations that washed over China was prompted by frustration about pandemic restrictions, but the unrest also sometimes resulted in calls for China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to resign. Since then, police have been