But where did the Iranian morality police go?
Many have been asking the question in Iran since the death in mid-September of the young Mahsa Amini at the hands of this militia of zeal which has the task of enforcing the wearing of the veil and the dress code of the Islamic Republic. The first target of the demonstrations of the last two months, this police force, which is also called the “comité”, seems to have deserted the streets of Iran since the anger of young people pours out there.
Result: according to reports that have emanated from Tehran in the last few days, hundreds of women are walking around with their hair in the wind. In demonstrations, of course, but also at the market, in the metro, in everyday life.
Responding to a reporter’s question on Sunday, the country’s attorney general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, dropped a bombshell. He affirmed that the morality police had been “abolished”, before conceding that the latter does not come under his jurisdiction, but rather under the Ministry of the Interior.
It is as if, in Canada, the Minister of Justice made a major announcement on the future of the police in place of the Minister of Public Security. That would raise some questions. Same in Iran.
At the end of the day on Sunday, moreover, the state television Seda va Sima denied the statements of the Attorney General, I learned from Vahid Yücesoy, a doctoral student in political science at the University of Montreal, who closely follows the news that come out of Iran.
And the reaction of the Iranians is rather lukewarm. “The Iranians are skeptical, there are several readings of what happened. Is it a disguised response to the manifestations, a cosmetic response? We don’t know,” Hanieh Ziaei, an Iranologist linked to the Raoul-Dandurand Chair at the University of Quebec in Montreal, told me on this subject.
It is therefore with this big downside in mind that we must see the announcement of the abolition of the morality police in Iran, an announcement that is making headlines around the world. An announcement which, if true, suggests that the ayatollahs’ regime – under pressure – has made a concession to the protest movement which promises three days of unprecedented mobilization this week.
But this “news” surrounded by uncertainty should not bring us too much relief.
In the system of repression in Iran, the morality police are only a very small link. In fact, one of the least bloodthirsty. If you ask Iranians who they are afraid of, they will tell you about the Revolutionary Guards, or Pasdaran in Farsi, a paramilitary organization that responds directly to the orders of the Supreme Leader of the Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Or they will mention the basijis, volunteer militiamen who are under the orders of the Guardians and whose role is to keep order in the streets.
These two entities play a central role in the suppression of demonstrations these days. It is of them that the Iranians think when they see that 470 people have been killed in two months, including 64 children, in the wake of the wave of dissension. Not the morality police.
It should not be forgotten either that the forces of order – whether they take one form or another – are only the guardians of a system of repression, made up of draconian laws, which particularly discriminate against women. .
Even if the regime decided to let go of some ballast by letting women choose to wear the Islamic veil or not, the fact remains that these same women would still not have the right to travel without their father’s consent for 40 years or more. yet to access the judiciary. Their testimony in a court of law would still be worth half that of a man.
If a woman were murdered, the killer’s family would still be entitled to a 50% windfall over a man when it came time to pay the “blood money” to the victim’s relatives. And the inheritance? Girls would continue to receive half of the boys’ share.
You will have understood the recurring theme: with or without a veil, a woman does not weigh heavily in this Iranian system which was built like a liberticidal cage from which it is difficult to escape.
And it is this cage that the demonstrators are stirring these days. Very strong. In Tehran, Shiraz, Kermanshah and 156 other Iranian cities. This cage that many of them want to open, believing that it is no longer possible to redecorate it or redo its architecture.
It would be surprising for them to give up even if the regime, through the voice of a free spirit attorney general, promises them to hook a tiny bar of the cage.