Iran’s public prosecutor said the regime’s morality police, whose detention of Mahsa Amini and her death in custody kicked off months of protests, would be shut down.
Summary
Iran’s public prosecutor said the regime’s morality police, whose detention of Mahsa Amini and her death in custody kicked off months of protests, would be shut down, although the Interior Ministry has not yet confirmed the decision.
- The morality police enforce Iran’s laws forcing women to cover their hair in public, and it’s unclear whether the chief prosecutor’s announcement would lead to a temporary or permanent suspension of the institution.
- Women-led protests have convulsed over 80 major cities across Iran since the death of 22-year-old Amini on September 16, three days after her arrest for exposing a lock of hair in public.
- In a possibly related move, Iranian state TV announced on Saturday the Islamic Republic began construction on a new nuclear power plant in southwest Iran.
- The new plant will take 8 years to build and would be the regime’s second public nuclear reactor along with several underground facilities.
- Also on Sunday, the regime’s powerful Revolutionary Guard executed four people accused of working for Israel’s Mossad, and three others were handed long prison sentences.
- The morality police “was abolished by the same authorities who installed it,” Attorney General Mohammad Javad Montazeri said in remarks during a meeting on Saturday, according to The New York Times.
- The Guardian covered a call from Iranian protesters for a three-day strike this week to increase pressure on the Iranian government.
- CNN reported the Iranian government demolished the family home of rock climber Elnaz Rekabi in apparent punishment to compete in a rock climbing competition in South Korea without covering her hair.
- President Ebrahim Raisi indicated there was room for the regime’s theocratic Islamic system to be “flexible,” The Wall Street Journal reported. The Parliament plans to review the law requiring compulsory hijabs, or veils.
- As Fox News wrote, the reported decision to abolish the morality police would be a “major victory for protesters in the country.” The demonstrations have become “ne of the largest challenges to the Iranian regime in decades.”
- The Telegraph noted more than 460 people have been killed in the more than two months since the death in custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. At least 50 children are among the dead.
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
