Iranian authorities are reviewing the law that has for decades forced women to wear the veil in a bid to calm the wave of protests that has rocked the country for more than two months.
“Parliament and the judiciary are working” on the matter, the attorney general said on Thursday Mohammad Jafar Montazeri to the news agency isna, which it announced on Friday. He did not say what could be changed in the law.
Iran has been gripped by a wave of protests since the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurdish girl who died on September 16 after being arrested by morality police for violating the country’s dress code Islamic Republicwhich requires women to wear the veil in public.
women in front
Women are leading the protests, shouting anti-government slogans, taking off their headscarves and burning them. Since the beginning of the protest movement, there have been more and more women, especially in the north, who have taken to the streets without a headscarf Tehran, the capital. They have received statements of solidarity for their important cause through massive demonstrations in different capitals of the world.
Ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi said at a conference in Tehran on Saturday that the constitution of the Iran “It has solid and immutable values and principles,” but there are methods of application that could be “changed.”
The veil became mandatory in Iran in 1983, four years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution toppled the US-backed Shah’s monarchy.
The Morality Police, known as Gasht-e Ershad [patrullas de orientación]was created under the mandate of the ultra-conservative President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad [de 2005 a 2013] to “spread the culture of decency and hijab”.
The headscarf issue remains very sensitive in a country where Conservatives – who dominate Parliament and the judiciary – insist it should be compulsory.
They call for urgent reforms
In September the main reformist party joined Iran He called for the law to be repealed.
The Islamic People’s Union of Iran party, made up of people close to former reformist President Mohamed Khatami, urged the authorities on Saturday to “prepare the legal elements that will pave the way for the lifting of the mandatory headscarf law.”
The opposition group is also calling for the Islamic Republic “Officially announce the end of the activities of the moral police” and “allow peaceful demonstrations,” says a statement.
“200 people died” in demonstrations
The Security Council of Iran reported yesterday that “more than 200 people lost their lives” during the protests in the Islamic Republic started in September.
The above-mentioned council said in a statement that the 200 deaths were due to terrorist attacks in the riots by armed counter-revolutionary elements, members of separatist groups.
But the NGO Human Rights in Oslo says the protests have claimed at least 448 lives at the hands of the security forces.” The opposition group is also calling for this Islamic Republic officially announce the end of the activities of the moral police”.
strong oppression
In the middle of a statement from Security Council of Iranwhich warns that any disturbance of public order and illegal gatherings at every level and in every place will be decisively and combated without tolerance”, there is a new call for protests against the system for December 5th, 6th and 7th, which has gone viral has become on social media.
In addition to the hundreds of deaths in the protests, the number of which is disputed, at least 2,000 people have been charged with various crimes for their participation in them, six of whom have been sentenced to death so far.
Resorting to the pretext of conspiracy, Iran accuses the US and its allies, as well as arch-enemy Israel, of being behind the protests, which it describes as “riots.”