The moral police is disbanded, a committee of inquiry is to clarify the cause of the protests in Iran – and the president invites to a meeting. The country’s regime is reacting to the demonstrations – but expectations are low. The situation could escalate again on Wednesday.
According to media reports, after ongoing mass protests in Iran, President Ebrahim Raisi met with several ministers for a crisis summit. The Isna agency reported that the latest developments in the country were on the agenda of the non-public meeting in the parliament in Tehran. According to the Presidential Office, Raisi had already consulted with Parliament President Mohammed-Bagher Ghalibaf and Justice Chief Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Edschehi on Saturday evening.
There were no details on what exactly would be discussed at the crisis summit. In the run-up there was speculation that it could be about the demands of the demonstrators. These include the revision of the Iranian constitution and the abolition of the headscarf requirement, but also new elections or a referendum on the development of the country’s political system.
Observers, however, did not have high expectations of the meeting. Raisi repeatedly emphasizes that while Iran is tolerant of criticism, it is not tolerant of foreign-controlled riots carried out by their mercenaries, as he describes the protests. The cleric also claims that the Iranian constitution is among the most advanced in the world and that there is no reason to change it.
In an unusual step, Iran also announced that it would set up a committee of inquiry to investigate the reasons for the protests in the country that have been going on for more than two months. However, neither demonstrators nor system critics nor other political parties should take part, said Interior Minister Ahmad Wahidi, according to the Ilna news agency.
The protesters had no representatives, “in addition, we were dealing with rioters and troublemakers and not demonstrators,” Wahidi said of the reasons for the exclusion of the protest representatives. However, critics warned that an investigation into the protests without the participation of protest leaders or opposition politicians would not yield constructive results. Some called the proposal “absurd”.
According to the minister, the committee of inquiry is about “exploring the roots of the protests and therefore only relevant authorities and independent lawyers will take part in the discussions in the committee,” it said.
Demonstrators, meanwhile, have called for a three-day strike, which is expected to culminate in protests at a public appearance by President Raisi on Wednesday. Social media called for a dealers’ strike and a three-day boycott of all economic activities. Raisi is scheduled to visit Tehran University on Wednesday for Iranian Student Day. Similar calls had led to an intensification of the unrest in the past few weeks.
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,” Isna quoted him as saying. 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. It was said on social media that the vice police had been seen less and less on the streets. The Ministry of the Interior is responsible for the vice squad, but initially did not comment.
According to official figures, 200 people have died in the protests since mid-September. This was reported by the Misan portal operated by the Iranian judiciary on Saturday, citing information from the Security Council. That would be significantly less than human rights groups claim. According to the HRANA (Human Rights Activists News Agency) information service run by human rights activists, 450 demonstrators were killed by the end of November, including 63 minors. In addition, 60 members of the security forces were killed.
