Vice police abolished in Iran? Mistrust

• Many media announced on Sunday the abolition of the morality police, the police responsible for checking the clothing of Iranian men and women, based on a statement by the Attorney General of Iran.

• However, in a report published on the conference website, the Attorney General does not announce this abolition.

• The abolition has not been confirmed by any other Iranian authority.

  Moreover, this police does not depend on the judiciary.

Vice police abolished in Iran?

Not so fast.

Many media, including

, headlined Sunday on the abolition of this police force, which had arrested Mahsa Amini on September 13, accused of not wearing her headscarf correctly.

The death of the young woman, three days later, sparked a wave of demonstrations, which are still taking place.

It is the Attorney General of Iran who reportedly announced the abolition of this police force.

"The morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary, and it was abolished by those who created it," said Mohammada Jafar Montazeri in the city of Qom.

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This quote appeared Saturday on the website of the Iranian news agency Isna, which says it relies on the public relations of the prosecutor's office.

The statement was said to have taken place during a conference on "the dimensions of hybrid warfare in recent unrest", according to the agency.

This conference took place, it was held on December 1 in a seminary in the holy city of Qom.

It had been announced online and it was possible to follow it remotely.

In the minutes of this conference, available on the seminar website, the Attorney General says the opposite of the remarks attributed to him on Saturday.

"The justice system has never taken any action or planned to close this patrol," he says of the morality police.

has had confirmation of the translation by two Persian-speaking sources.

The Isna agency also took up this quote and this report in a first article on Friday.

No authority has yet confirmed or denied the removal of this font.

A “particularly violent, insulting” police

The morality police were created in 2007, but it existed in other forms before, reminds

Azadeh Kian, professor of sociology at Paris Cité University and author of

.

This police "does not depend on the judiciary, but on the Ministry of the Interior", she recalls.

It ensures “good respect for Islamic constraints in the public space, develops Mahnaz Shirali, sociologist and political scientist, author of

.

Women must hide their hair, not wear makeup, not wear bright colors, and boys must have an extremely simple haircut, they must not have T-shirts, sneakers.

This force "is particularly violent, insulting," she notes.

If this policy were to disappear soon, the wearing of the veil remains obligatory.

“A law passed in 1983 is still in force,” recalls Azadeh Kian.

The removal of this police is not part of the demands of the demonstrators, recall these two specialists in Iran.

These have a very wide demand, the end of the regime.

*

was published in 2019 by Michalon editions.

was published in 2021 by Les Pérégrines editions.

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