Hijab crackdown: Tehran disbands morality police to quell protests, avoid another `Iran Spring’

Months after morality police killed 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, Iran disbanded the force notorious for imposing a stringent female clothing code and attacking women in public.

“Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary and have been disbanded,” said Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, according to a report by the ISNA news agency.

He made the remarks in response to a participant’s question about “why the morality police were being shut down” during a religious conference.

Under the hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the morality police, technically called the Gasht-e Ershad or ‘Guidance Patrol,’ were founded to “promote the culture of modesty and hijab.”

A day after Montazeri stated that “both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the matter)” of whether the legislation mandating women to wear their heads needed to be altered, it was announced that they will be abolished.

In televised remarks, President Ebrahim Raisi noted that while Iran’s republican and Islamic roots were firmly rooted in the constitution, “there are means of executing the constitution that might be flexible.”

Four years after the 1979 revolution that established the Islamic Republic of Iran and toppled the US-backed monarchy, the hijab was made obligatory.

Before beginning to crack down and arrest women 15 years ago, morality police officials first issued warnings.

Men in green uniforms and women wearing black chadors, which cover their upper bodies and heads, often made up the vice squads.