Arbil, Iraq:
Iranians in Iraq were skeptical of reports on Sunday that Tehran has abolished its dreaded morality police, a force indelibly linked to months of protests in the Islamic Republic.
Iran’s morality police arrested young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini in mid-September for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code for women, and she subsequently died in their custody, sparking continued protests.
Late on Saturday, Iran’s attorney general said the force had been “abolished”.
But the move got short shrift in Iraqi Kurdistan, where Iranian opposition groups have recently been targeted by the regime’s cross-border rocket and drone attacks.
“The protesters’ slogan is not to disband the morality police,” said Nachmil Abdi, who works at a shop that sells women’s shoes.
“Yes, one of the claims is an end to the mandatory headscarf,” she added. “But the real demand is the abolition of the regime.”
Soma Hakimzada, a 32-year-old journalist born in Iraqi Kurdistan to parents who fled Iran, also saw the move vaguely.
“I don’t think women appreciate this Iranian announcement,” she said, adding that she hoped it would not dampen the fervor of protests within the Islamic republic.
Elsewhere in Iraq, opinions were mixed.
“If we want to have a morality police, it must be done with soft words,” pleaded Wahid Sarabi, speaking in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf, but who hails from the western Iranian city of Hamedan.
Younis Radoui, a 36-year-old Iranian originally from Mashhad, believed that laws in Iran “enforce respect for the hijab — and therefore all citizens must respect the law and the hijab.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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