Iran suspends morality police in country: Jamaran news website

Jamaran news website citing the Iranian Commission for Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil stated that the morality and social security patrols are over.

"Various institution are following up on the matter of finding the appropriate mechanisms to handle the Hijab issue," the website added, citing the Iranian Commission.

When asked about the Guidance Patrol during a religious conference on Saturday, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri said, "The morality police had nothing to do with the judiciary and have been shut down from where they were set up."

However, he stressed that the judiciary would continue "to monitor behavioral actions at the community level."

Contrary to what many believe, these patrols and their police forces have not been formed following the Islamic Revolution in 1979. They even did not exist before the government of former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who established them in 2005, as part of a project adopted by the General Culture Council of the Supreme Council of the Iranian Cultural Revolution, legally concerned with the management of cultural and educational affairs in the country.

Read: Iran slams west dual standards in face of protests