The announcement of the disbanding of Iran’s morality police as a result of the current protest movement in the Islamic Republic “will not change anything” about the mobilisation of Iranians, a German government official said on Monday.
“Iranians are taking to the streets to defend their basic rights. They want to live free and independent and this measure, if implemented, will not change that,” a foreign ministry spokesperson told a regular press briefing.
Iran’s chief prosecutor, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, announced on Saturday evening that “the morality police (…) have been abolished by those who created them.”
The announcement was a gesture towards the demonstrators who have taken to the streets to express their anger since the death in custody on 16 September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman arrested three days earlier by the same morality police for not respecting the country’s dress code.
“The statements come from the Attorney General, who cannot, by virtue of his office, dissolve the morality police. We must therefore show some restraint in our assessment,” German Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Andrea Sasse said on Monday.
“We have to wait and see what the exact impact of this announcement will be,” she added, stressing that there had been “no official confirmation” so far.
The demonstrators “do not only want the dissolution of the morality police or the end of the headscarf obligation,” she said.
