Is it a success for the people who have been protesting against the Iranian regime and the vice squad for the past two weeks? According to the Attorney General, the Vice Police was disbanded. But FDP General Secretary Djir-Sarai considers this to be a distraction.
The FDP General Secretary Bijan Djir-Sarai has described the dissolution of the Iranian moral police as a “diversionary tactic” by the government in Tehran. “The regime is about to collapse and is trying to save itself with diversionary maneuvers,” said Iranian-born Djir-Sarai, who came to Germany as a child, to the newspapers of the Funke media group. “The majority of people know the lies of the leadership and are not deterred” – the people wanted the abolition of the Islamic Republic, the politician explained.
The Federal Minister for Education and Research, Bettina Stark-Watzinger from the FDP, assessed the news of the dissolution of the Sickle Party more positively. “A first success for the many courageous women in Iran – and hopefully not the last!” she wrote on Twitter. Now, however, “further steps towards more self-determination and freedom must follow”. Human rights are non-negotiable, Stark-Watzinger added.
Iran’s Attorney General Mohammed Jafar Montazeri had previously announced the dissolution of the vice squad. “The vice squad has nothing to do with the judiciary and was abolished by those who created it,” he was quoted as saying by the Isna news agency. The resolution is seen as a gesture towards the demonstrators who have been taking to the streets across the country for weeks.
These protests were triggered by the death of 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini three days after her arrest by the vice squad in mid-September. She is said to have violated the dress code, which requires women to wear a headscarf in public.
The moral police, which has been monitoring compliance with the headscarf requirement on Iran’s streets since 2006, was set up under the ultra-conservative head of state Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. It should “spread the culture of decency and the hijab”. The unit’s role had gradually evolved and was always a controversial subject even for presidential candidates. Originally, the vice squad issued warnings before cracking down and arresting women 15 years ago.
On Friday, Attorney General Montaseri announced that the Iranian parliament and judiciary would review the law obliging women to wear a headscarf. “Parliament and the judiciary are working” on this issue, he said. He announced results in “a week or two” but did not comment on what might be changed about the law.
“Our constitution has strong and immutable values and principles,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said on television on Saturday. But there are “methods for implementing the constitution” that could be “flexible”. Women in Iran have had to wear a headscarf since 1983.