According to pro-reform website Entekhab, Iran’s Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri stated Thursday that the country’s parliament and courts are reconsidering the country’s required hijab legislation.
Montazeri was also cited as declaring that Iran’s dreaded morality police had been “abolished,” but Iranian official media sharply refuted the claims, claiming that the force is overseen by the interior ministry, not the court.
CNN has contacted the Ministry of Interior for comment.
Women in Iran are presently required to wear a headscarf in public under stringent Islamic legislation, which is enforced by the country’s so-called morality police. After the murder of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after being seized by morality police for reportedly not wearing her hijab properly, the regulations around head covering ignited a widespread protest movement.
Her death on September 16 struck a chord throughout the Islamic Republic, with notable public personalities, like famous Iranian performer Taraneh Alidoosti, coming out in favor of the cause.
The country has been seized by a wave of huge protests sparked by Amini’s killing and centered on a variety of complaints against the leadership. Authorities have launched a lethal crackdown on protestors, with claims of forced detentions and physical abuse targeting the country’s Kurdish minority community.
Covert testimony showed sexual assault against protestors, including minors, in Iran’s detention camps from the beginning of the uprising, according to a recent CNN investigation.
