Iran abolishes morality police after months-long protests

In a major victory to the anti-hijab protesters in Iran, the Islamic country has abolished its morality police after more than two months of sustained worldwide protests, media reported on Sunday.

The protests were triggered by the custodial death of 21-year-old Mahsa Amini who was detained and allegedly tortured by Iran’s morality police for allegedly violating the country's strict female dress code in September this year. Amini died on September 16, three days after her arrest in Tehran.

"Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary" and have been abolished, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

His comment came at a religious conference where he responded to a participant who asked "why the morality police were being shut down", the report said.

The morality police—known formally as the Gasht-e-Ershad or ‘Guidance Patrol’—was established under former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2006 in order to spread the “culture of modesty” and hijab.

The squads were usually made up of men in green uniforms and women clad in black chadars.

The announcement of their abolition came a day after Montazeri said that "both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the issue)" of whether the law requiring women to cover their heads needs to be changed.

The hijab became mandatory four years after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy and established the Islamic Republic of Iran.