Protesters in Iran are calling for a three-day strike this week amid conflicting reports that the country’s “morality police” have been shut down – away from their own people and the international community.
The call increases pressure on Iranian officials after the attorney general said this weekend that the moral police had been shut down after the detention of a young woman sparked months of protests.
There was no confirmation of the closure from the Ministry of Interior, which is in charge of the morality police, and Iran’s state media said Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was not responsible for overseeing the police.
After a closed-door meeting with several Iranian officials, including President Ebrahim Raisi, on Sunday, lawmaker Nezamodin Mousavi told the semi-official news agency Isna that the government was “paying attention to the real demands of the people.” but did not mention the reported closures. moral police.
Hundreds died in unrest that erupted in September after Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian woman detained by morality police, died in custody for breaking hijab rules.
Montazelli also said on Saturday that the government was reviewing a law on compulsory hijabs, one of the issues that sparked protests that have lasted more than 10 weeks.
Activist news agency HRANA said 470 people had died as of Saturday, including 64 minors.
Protesters seeking to maintain their challenge to Iran’s clerical ruler called for a three-day economic strike and rally in Tehran’s Azadi Square on Wednesday. Similar calls for strike action and mass mobilization have resulted in an escalation of unrest in the past few weeks.
Rob Murray, the US special envoy for Iran, said at a conference in Rome that Iran’s leadership was caught in a “vicious circle” in cracking down on protests, and that Washington had supported Tehran’s decision to arm Russia in Ukraine. said he was focusing more on repression. of its internal protests rather than negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.
“The more Iran suppresses, the tougher the sanctions. The more sanctions, the more isolated Iran feels,” Murray said.
“The more isolated they feel, the more they look to Russia. is lower, so it is true that the vicious cycle is all self-reinforcing.
“Suppressing protests and Iranian support for Russia’s war in Ukraine is where we focus because it is happening and where we want to make a difference. .”
US National Intelligence Director Avril Haynes said last weekend there was disturbing evidence that Russia was seeking to deepen military cooperation with Iran. Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri was in Moscow over the weekend.
A senior European diplomat said Iran was paying a huge price for its decision to become the only country to arm Russia in a war with Ukraine. “This is an unholy alliance and a massive miscalculation by Iran,” the diplomat said.
The next show of US solidarity with protesters will likely come when it submits a motion to exclude Iran from the UN commission on the status of women in a vote scheduled for Dec. 14, says Malley. said.
Some European diplomats believe Iran’s leadership has reached an irreversible tipping point from which it will never recover.
A diplomat said: The Islamic Republic – regime – has finally lost contact with their people, 43 years after him. This is unlike what has happened in the last 43 years.
“They are having a dialogue with themselves, but most people think the reform proposals are largely irrelevant.”
The diplomat also noted tensions within the regime over how to respond to the protests, saying:
Diplomats say the regime’s obvious loss of domestic support has fueled debates inside Iran about whether to ease its isolation through an expanded alliance with Russia, or instead try to revive the nuclear deal. I believe that
Murray’s remarks suggest the US believes Iran has made a series of fateful decisions. It would fully revive the nuclear deal, which lifted some economic sanctions in exchange for control of Iran’s nuclear program by the West, a political impossibility for now, he said.Iran The door to diplomacy was not closed even though the leaders of the
Iran’s state broadcaster on Sunday moved to distance itself from comments about the moral police. Al-Alam state television said foreign media portrayed his comments as “the Islamic Republic retreating from its stance on the hijab and religious morality as a result of the protests”, but his comments are understandable. The moral police had no direct relationship with the judiciary.
Reuters contributed to this report
