DUBAI, Dec 4 (Reuters) – Protesters in Iran known as on Sunday for a three-day strike this week, stepping up strain on authorities after the general public prosecutor mentioned the morality police whose detention of a younger girl triggered months of protests had been shut down.
There was no affirmation of the closure from the Interior Ministry which is in control of the morality police, and Iranian state media mentioned Public Prosecutor Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was not accountable for overseeing the power.
Top Iranian officers have repeatedly mentioned Tehran wouldn’t change the Islamic Republic’s necessary hijab coverage, which requires girls to decorate modestly and put on headscarves, regardless of 11 weeks of protests towards strict Islamic laws.
Hundreds of individuals have been killed within the unrest which erupted in September after the loss of life in custody of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish Iranian girl who was detained by the morality police for flouting the hijab guidelines.
Protesters in search of to take care of their problem to Iran’s clerical rulers have known as for a three-day financial strike and a rally to Tehran’s Azadi (Freedom) Square on Wednesday, in response to particular person posts shared on Twitter by accounts unverified by Reuters.
President Ebrahim Raisi is because of deal with college students in Tehran on the identical day to mark Student Day in Iran.
Similar calls for strike motion and mass mobilisation have in previous weeks resulted in an escalation within the unrest which has swept the nation – a few of the largest anti-government protests since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
The activist HRANA information company mentioned 470 protesters had been killed as of Saturday, together with 64 minors. It mentioned 18,210 demonstrators had been arrested and 61 members of the safety forces had been killed.
Iran’s Interior Ministry state safety council mentioned on Saturday the loss of life toll was 200, in response to the judiciary’s information company Mizan.
Residents posting on social media and newspapers similar to Shargh each day say there have been fewer sightings of the morality police on the streets in current weeks as authorities apparently attempt to keep away from scary extra protests.
On Saturday, Montazeri was cited by the semi-official Iranian Labour News Agency as saying that the morality police had been disbanded.
“The same authority which has established this police has shut it down,” he was quoted as saying. He mentioned the morality police was not below the judiciary’s authority, which “continues to monitor behavioural actions at the community level.”
Al Alam state tv mentioned overseas media had been depicting his feedback as “a retreat on the part of the Islamic Republic from its stance on hijab and religious morality as a result of the protests”, however that each one that may very well be understood from his feedback was that the morality police weren’t instantly associated to the judiciary.
EXECUTIONS
State media mentioned 4 males convicted of cooperating with Israel’s spy company Mossad had been executed on Sunday.
They had been arrested in June – earlier than the present unrest sweeping the nation – following cooperation between the Ministry of Intelligence and the Revolutionary Guards, Tasnim information company reported.
The prime minister’s workplace in Israel, which oversees Mossad, declined to remark.
The Islamic Republic has lengthy accused arch-enemy Israel of finishing up covert operations on its soil. Tehran has just lately accused Israeli of plotting a civil warfare in Iran, a cost it has additionally made towards the United States and different Western nations.
“Western countries are using the protests to interfere in Iran’s internal affairs,” Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian instructed a information convention on Sunday.
Iranian state media reported on Wednesday that the nation’s Supreme Court had upheld the loss of life sentence handed out to the 4 males “for the crime of cooperating with the intelligence services of the Zionist regime and for kidnapping”.
Three different folks had been handed jail sentences of between 5 and 10 years after being convicted of crimes that included appearing towards nationwide safety, aiding in kidnapping and possessing unlawful weapons, the Mehr information company mentioned.
Reporting by Dubai Newsroom
Editing by Dominic Evans, Raissa Kasolowsky, William Maclean and Susan Fenton
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.