But, he added, “after the recent incidents, the security and cultural institutions are looking for a prudent solution to the problem.” Mr. Montazeri added that the judiciary was drafting a bill “related to the field of chastity and hijab.”
The next day, Mr. Raisi said in a televised interview that “there are methods and mechanisms for the implementation of the law that should be reviewed,” according to IRNA, Iran’s state-run news agency.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir Abdollahian, when asked over the weekend about the morality police at a news conference in Belgrade, Serbia, where he was on an official visit, did not deny that the force had been abolished, but said, “In Iran, everything is moving forward well in the framework of democracy and freedom.”
One state television channel, the Arabic-language Al Alam, appeared to walk back the attorney general’s comments on Sunday, reporting that they had been taken out of context, and emphasized that “no official in the Islamic Republic of Iran has confirmed the reports of the Guidance Patrol being abolished.” Other state channels said the government was not backing down from the mandatory hijab law.
“We will not retreat from the hijab and chastity policy, otherwise the retreat will be equal to giving up on the whole Islamic Republic” Hossein Jalali, a member of Parliament’s Committee of Culture, said on Monday at gathering by pro-hijab women in the city of Qom. “Hijab is our flag and we will not let it fall,” he added.
When asked on Monday about the status of the unit, a spokesman for Tehran’s regional police force, Colonel Ali Sabahi, told a reporter from Shargh daily to refer back to the attorney general. He added that the police would have a statement “when it was appropriate” to do so.
