Questioned after a speech in the religious city of Qom, the Attorney General of Iran, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, was surprised when his remarks were relayed on Saturday December 3 by the Isna press agency: he seemed to claim that the morality police, responsible for the death of Mahsa Amini, had been suppressed.
"The morality police has nothing to do with the judiciary, and it was abolished by those who created it," he said, before continuing: "Of course, the judiciary will continue to control the mores of society."
Two days later, things seem much less clear.
For the historian specializing in Iran Jonathan Piron, the government is on the contrary more inflexible than ever.
“The morality police have not been abolished in Iran, explains the researcher. The words of the public prosecutor were ambiguous, they were misinterpreted. authorities and power makes no concessions on this subject, it pursues its repressive logic."
"The hijab is part of the DNA" of the regime
Washington and Berlin said on Monday that they expected "no improvement" in the situation of women in Iran, while at least 500 people have been executed since the beginning of the mobilization and 18,000 others imprisoned.
Going back on the obligation to wear the veil, a pillar of the regime since 1983, seems indeed impossible.
"The regime cannot go back on the obligation to wear the veil, remarks David Rigoulet-Roze, researcher at Iris. If he agreed to go back on it, it would be as if he were denying himself. The hijab is part of its DNA. From this point of view, the regime is arguably irreformable because it cannot change its very identity."
The political scientist therefore fears an increase in violence, at a time when more and more women are removing their veils.
The director of a chain of stores was summoned by the authorities on Monday for agreeing to serve bareheaded customers.
An amusement park was closed in Tehran because its employees did not wear headscarves.
"They will not put their veils back on and will prefer to expose their lives, develops David Rigoulet-Roze. It is likely that a point of no return has been reached, not to mention that, not without apparent paradox, women who wish to continue to wear the veil support those who remove it, in the name of this claimed freedom of choice."
Discontent thus seems to be generalized in Iran, where images showing young women tearing off their veils are now accompanied by anti-regime slogans calling for the departure of the Supreme Leader as well as the government.
"Revolution in the making"
In this context, the announcement of the abolition of the morality police is rather an attempt at diversion on the part of the authorities, on the eve of a call for a new three-day national strike.
"It would possibly come under a form of 'trial balloon', a deliberately ambivalent and sibylline announcement, continues David Rigoulet-Roze. Because, in terms of timing, this comes just before the three days of strike announced on the social networks for the beginning of the week. It is perhaps a question of seeing if this type of announcement is likely to defuse the dynamic initiated.
Be that as it may, this announcement did not in any way affect the motivation of the protesters on Monday.
The first day of the strike was indeed attended by merchants and universities in several towns across the country, such as Chahinchahr (see videos below), near Isfahan, where the movement is widely followed.
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More scenes of strikes by merchant owners in #Esfahan.
All over the country, people are banding together to strike and protest against this regime.
They're done with an Islamic Republic.#IranRevolution#اعتصابات_سراسری
pic.twitter.com/rIPNKsqBKP
— Masih Alinejad 🏳️ (@AlinejadMasih) December 5, 2022
Notably, workers also went on strike, such as those at the Mahchahr petrochemical plant.
A key point for the regime, which nevertheless monitors the sector like milk on the fire: in 1978, the great strike of the petrochemical factories had led to the fall of the shah.
According to Radio Farda, five hundred contract workers at the Mahchahr petrochemical plant stopped work on Sunday to demand a pay rise.
The proof, for the Franco-Iranian sociologist Azadeh Kian, that the Iranian government is facing a "revolution in the making".
“Traders, who were very close to the regime, largely followed the strike on Monday, she lists, as did petrochemical and steel plant workers, truck drivers, high school students, students and teachers… We see that the movement is spreading and that it is not weakening, quite the contrary."
Unprecedented in its scope as in its duration, this movement still lacks a "tipping point" for it to become truly revolutionary.
“Young people are no longer afraid, unlike previous generations – fear has changed sides, we say today in Iran – and they are supported by their parents, even their grandparents, observes David Rigoulet-Roze The situation is totally unprecedented, even if a real "convergence of struggles" is still lacking at the level of society as a whole. The tipping point has not yet been reached, but it is not necessarily far away. "
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