The Iranian administration has not confirmed any changes to the headscarf law or the operation of the chastity police.
Iran’s the protesters announced on Sunday that they are planning a three-day general strike this week, news agencies say.
According to Reuters, protesters have called on Iranians on social media for a general strike since Tuesday and to gather at Tehran’s Azad Tower on Wednesday. President Ebrahim Raisi will give a speech to the students on the same day.
Reuters has not been able to confirm the Twitter accounts relaying the rally calls, but similar messages have fueled protests in recent weeks.
Iranians walking in Tehran on Sunday.
On the weekend it seemed that the Iranian leadership was ready to make concessions.
Iranian media reported the public prosecutor By Mohammad Jafar Montazer for comments that Iran’s chastity police would be disbanded.
The Iranian protest wave started when a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd Mahsa Amini a chastity police officer died after being arrested. She was arrested for breaking the law on wearing a headscarf, i.e. hijab.
“The same authority that founded this police force has abolished it,” Montazeri was reported to have said, according to the Reuters news agency.
Is however, it is possible that the concessions are just a trick.
The Ministry of the Interior, which is responsible for the Chastity Police, did not confirm the termination of the police, and foreign media began to be criticized on Iranian state television during Sunday and Monday for misunderstanding the comments.
For example, according to the Al Alam television channel, foreign media presented Montazer’s comments as a retreat by the Iranian leadership on the headscarf issue, although “nothing like this can be concluded”. Iranian authorities have commented for weeks that there are no changes to the use of the hijab or other dress codes for women due to the protests.
Researcher specializing in Iran Ali Fathollah-Nejad The American University of Beirut commented on Twitter that the chastity police have not been officially abolished and Montazer’s speeches were only meant to act as a distraction and soften the protests.
Also Professor of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Helsinki Hannu Juusola estimates that diversion and the cooling of protests is one possible explanation for the conflicting messages. On the other hand, it is possible that internal disputes within the administration will be visible in the matter.
“The situation looks very unclear,” says Juusola.
“The most likely interpretation is that within the political elite there are different ideas about how to end the protests. This is inevitably speculation, but would the public prosecutor have wanted to push through what he saw as the best option by talking to the media?”
Montazer’s statement was an answer to a question put to him, so at least not an official decision.
“Some Iranian newspapers that sympathize with the regime have now downplayed the importance of the statement.”
Juusola reminds that the chastity police have no longer played a visible role on the streets and in people’s everyday lives after the protests broke out, so abolishing them is hardly a sufficient measure for the protesters.
The protests have already lasted eleven weeks and hundreds of people have died. According to Iran’s official figures, the dead are 200, activists Food– news agency, 470, of which 64 were minors when they died. According to the news agency, there are more than 18,000 people arrested.
“The bigger question is how to proceed with regard to whether veiling is mandatory,” says Juusola.
The dress code will be debated in Iran in the coming weeks.
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