According to the attorney general, the religious police in Iran, which was previously primarily responsible for observing women’s dress codes, has been dissolved. “The religious police have been disbanded, but the judiciary will continue to deal with this social challenge,” said Attorney General Mohammed Jafar Montaseri, quoted by the daily Shargh. There were no further details.
Critics of the political leadership reacted cautiously to the announcement. The problem is not the religious police, but the headscarf requirement, wrote an Iranian activist on Twitter. “Women should be able to go anywhere without a headscarf,” he demanded. And this is just the first step.
According to observers, the dissolution of the religious police would not mean the end of the compulsory headscarf for women, but would represent an important partial success for the women’s movement in Iran.