Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday vowed to ensure that morality police no longer “harass” women while addressing the media on the second anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death in custody.
Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian Kurd, died in police custody on September 16, 2022, just days after morality police arrested her in Tehran for allegedly violating the Islamic republic’s strict dress code for women.
His death sparked months of protests across the country, in which hundreds of people, including dozens of security personnel, were killed. Thousands of protesters were arrested.
“The morality police should not confront women. I will keep an eye on them so they don’t harass them,” Pezeshkian said during his first press conference since taking office in July.
Pezeshkian replaced ultra-conservative Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in May.
During her election campaign, she vowed to “resolutely” oppose police patrols enforcing compulsory hijab and to ease longstanding internet restrictions.
Iran has for several years tightly controlled internet access and banned popular social media platforms such as Facebook and X.
Strict restrictions were imposed during the 2019 protests against fuel price hikes and demonstrations that began after Amini’s death.
On Monday, Pezeshkian said his government was working to ease restrictions online, particularly on social media.
Relations with the West
At Monday’s press conference, Pezeshkian also briefly touched on other topics, including Iran’s strained relations with the United States and the 2015 nuclear deal.
He said, “If America respects our rights then we do not want to fight with it.”
“We are not hostile toward (the Americans). We have not built military bases around their country.”
Iran and the United States have had no diplomatic relations since 1980, a year after the Islamic Revolution that removed Western-backed Shah Mohammad Reza from power.
Iran was granted sanctions relief in exchange for curbs on its nuclear programme under a landmark 2015 deal between Tehran and world powers.
But the deal soon fell apart and tensions rose again after the United States unilaterally withdrew from the accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions on Iran the following year.
Iran has since suspended compliance with the moratorium on nuclear activities.
“We don’t want nuclear weapons; we have respected the framework of the nuclear deal,” Pezeshkian said.
“They (the US) broke the agreement and forced us to do something.”
Pezeshkian also spoke about the newly imposed restrictions.
Last week Britain, France and Germany announced punitive measures targeting Iranian air transport, accusing it of supplying ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.
Iran has repeatedly denied sending any weapons to Russia for use in war, and has vowed to respond to the latest in a long series of Western sanctions on Tehran, including over its nuclear activities.
Pezeshkian said Iran had not supplied any weapons to Russia.
“It is possible that there was military cooperation between Iran and Russia in the past … because there were no sanctions at that time,” he said.
“I can say with certainty that since our arrival we have not given them anything that would make (the West) boycott us.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
