As the protest movement in Iran continues to grow in intensity following calls for another three-day strike, the prosecutor general made the surprise announcement on Saturday that the country’s morality police, the group responsible for the death of Mahsa Amini which sparked the protests, had been abolished. The declaration was initially seen as a retreat by the regime but has done little to pacify dissent.
As he answered questions following a speech in the city of Qom on December 3, few expected the surprise announcement from Iran’s prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri: he seemed to confirm that the morality police, created in 2006, had been abolished.
