Two years after the death of Iranian woman Makhsa Amini, the country’s president Massoud Pezheskian has vowed to work to ensure that the morality police do not “harass” women who do not wear the mandatory veil in public.
“The morality police should not confront (women), I’ll make sure it doesn’t bother you.“the reformist president said in Tehran during his first press conference since his election in July.
Pezeskian made these statements two years after the death, on September 16, 2022, of Maksha Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman of Kurdish origin, who was arrested by the morality police for not respecting the strict dress code imposed on women in Iran. .
“Even the attorney general said that (these police officers) had no right to confront” the women, the president added.
Electoral promise to remove the moral police
During the election campaign, Pezeskian promised to remove the morality police, the unit responsible for overseeing how women wear the mandatory headscarf, from the streets.
The death of Mahsha Amini sparked a massive protest movement in Iran, with hundreds of people killed and thousands arrested.
Authorities have called the protests “riots” orchestrated by Western countries.
Pezeskian, then a member of the Iranian parliament, strongly criticized the police in September 2022 over the death of Makhsa Amini.
Today, the Iranian president also said that his government is trying to ease the draconian restrictions imposed on the Internet, especially social media.
During the 2022 protests, Iran blocked Instagram and WhatsApp, the most used apps after blocking the platforms YouTube, Facebook, Telegram, Twitter and Tiktok in recent years
Sources: AMPE, AFP
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