Iran’s morality police.Photo: Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty
Hours afterTheNew York Times, citing a top Iranian official, reported that the Iran’s morality police had been disbanded, the nation’s government-run media began pushing back, claiming that the controversial police force remains intact.
TheTimes, in turn, reported that the police force had been “abolished,” drawing a connection between the disbanding of the force and the ongoing anti-government protests.
But state media quickly pushed back on that assessment, leading to a lack of clarity regarding whether or not Iran is actively policing women for what they wear.
The state television network Al-Alam on Sunday said that Montazeri’s words had been misinterpreted and that “no official of the Islamic Republic of Iran has said that the Guidance Patrol has been shut,“CNNreports.
Iran protests.AFP via Getty
“She was arrested and taken into police custody for what they call an ‘educational and reorientation class,'” Thomas-Greenfield said. “Some hours later, she was transferred to the hospital in a coma and she died two days later.”
Iranian women have taken to the streetsto protest Amini’s deathin the weeks and months since, facing violence and even death themselves as the eyes of the world have turned to the morality police, which the U.S. State Department has described as an organization that enforces “restrictions on freedom of expression.”
Thomas-Greenfield said earlier that similar law enforcement arms which police “morality” have been seen elsewhere in the world, including in Afghanistan, where the Ministry of Vice and Virtue became a notorious symbol of arbitrary abuses during the previous Taliban reign of the mid-1990s.
“These [law enforcement agencies governing morality] tend to be particularly harsh against women,” Thomas-Greenfield said.
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State Department SecretaryAntony Blinkenannounced in October that the U.S. had imposed sanctions both on Iran’s morality police and on “senior security officials who have engaged in serious human rights abuses.”
“These officials oversee organizations that routinely employ violence to suppress peaceful protesters and members of Iranian civil society, political dissidents, women’s rights activists, and members of the Iranian Baha’i community,” the Treasury Department said in a statement at the time.
source: people.com
