Iran scraps morality police after months of deadly protests

An Iranian policewoman walks between police vehicles, preparing to start a crackdown to enforce Islamic dress code in Tehran, Iran on July 23, 2007. (AFP/File)
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Updated 04 December 2022
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Iran scraps morality police after months of deadly protests

  • Women-led protests swept Iran after a 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin died in the custody of the morality police in September
  • The morality police were established under hardline president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to 'spread the culture of modesty and hijab'

TEHRAN: Iran has scrapped its morality police after more than two months of protests triggered by the arrest of Mahsa Amini for allegedly violating the country’s strict female dress code, local media said Sunday.
Women-led protests, labelled “riots” by the authorities, have swept Iran since the 22-year-old Iranian of Kurdish origin died on September 16, three days after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran.
“Morality police have nothing to do with the judiciary” and have been abolished, Attorney General Mohammad Jafar Montazeri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.
His comment came at a religious conference where he responded to a participant who asked “why the morality police were being shut down,” the report said.
The morality police — known formally as the Gasht-e Ershad or “Guidance Patrol” — were established under hard-line president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to “spread the culture of modesty and hijab,” the mandatory female head covering.
The units began patrols in 2006.
The announcement of their abolition came a day after Montazeri said that “both parliament and the judiciary are working (on the issue)” of whether the law requiring women to cover their heads needs to be changed.
President Ebrahim Raisi said in televised comments Saturday that Iran’s republican and Islamic foundations were constitutionally entrenched “but there are methods of implementing the constitution that can be flexible.”
The hijab became mandatory four years after the 1979 revolution that overthrew the US-backed monarchy and established the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Morality police officers initially issued warnings before starting to crack down and arrest women 15 years ago.
The vice squads were usually made up of men in green uniforms and women clad in black chadors, garments that cover their heads and upper bodies.
The role of the units evolved, but has always been controversial even among candidates running for the presidency.
Clothing norms gradually changed, especially under former moderate president Hassan Rouhani, when it became commonplace to see women in tight jeans with loose, colorful headscarves.
But in July this year his successor, the ultra-conservative Raisi, called for the mobilization of “all state institutions to enforce the headscarf law.”
Raisi at the time charged that “the enemies of Iran and Islam have targeted the cultural and religious values of society by spreading corruption.”
In spite of this, many women continued to bend the rules, letting their headscarves slip onto their shoulders or wearing tight-fitting pants, especially in major cities and towns.
Iran’s regional rival Saudi Arabia also employed morality police to enforce female dress codes and other rules of behavior. Since 2016 the force there has been sidelined in a push by the Sunni Muslim kingdom to shake off its austere image.


Palestinian sources say to free Gaza hostage demanded by Israel before next swap

Updated 7 sec ago
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Palestinian sources say to free Gaza hostage demanded by Israel before next swap

  • Arbel Yehud will be handed over within days, sources say
  • In exchange, 30 prisoners serving life sentences will be released

CAIRO: Two Palestinian sources told AFP on Sunday that an Israeli woman held hostage in Gaza, and whose release Israel has demanded before allowing the return of displaced Palestinians, will be handed over within days.
“Arbel Yehud is expected to be freed before the next (hostage-prisoner) exchange” scheduled for February 1, said a source from the Islamic Jihad militant group.
Another Palestinian source familiar with the issue said Yehud is expected to be released by Friday.
“The release of Arbel Yehud will happen most likely by next Friday in exchange for 30 prisoners serving life sentences,” the source said on condition of anonymity as he was not authorized to speak on the matter publicly.
Israel has accused Hamas of reneging on the ceasefire deal by not releasing Yehud when the second hostage-prisoner took place on Saturday.
As a civilian woman, Yehud “was supposed to be released” as part of the second hostage-prisoner swap under the truce deal, a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
Labelling it a violation by Hamas of the ceasefire deal, Netanyahu’s office said it “will not allow the passage of Gazans to the northern part of the Gaza Strip until the release of civilian Arbel Yehud... is arranged.”
On Saturday, two Hamas sources told AFP that Yehud was “alive and in good health,” with one source saying she would be “released as part of the third swap set for next Saturday.”
But on Sunday, the two Palestinian sources said she was expected to be released following an intervention by mediators Egypt and Qatar.
“The crisis has been resolved,” said the source familiar with the issue.
Tens of thousands of displaced Gazans massed on Sunday on the road to the north but were not allowed to pass through, AFP correspondents reported.


Netanyahu says France assures Israel its firms can take part in Paris Air Show

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. (File/AP)
Updated 25 min 51 sec ago
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Netanyahu says France assures Israel its firms can take part in Paris Air Show

  • Israeli defense companies were last year banned from participating in a defense industry exhibition held in Paris

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said on Sunday that French President Emmanuel Macron had given him assurances that Israeli companies would be able to take part in the Paris Air Show.
The two had a phone conversation during which the assurance was given, according to a statement by the prime minister’s office.
Separately, Macron’s office said in a statement that the presence of Israeli companies at the air show “could be favorably considered, as a result of the ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon.”
Israeli defense companies were last year banned from participating in a defense industry exhibition held in Paris as Macron called for Israel to cease some military operations in Gaza.
That ban strained relations, but a French court in October overturned a government ban on Israeli companies taking part in a naval arms exhibition near Paris.
The Paris Air Show, the world’s largest, is held every two years, alternating every other year with Farnborough in Britain. It is due to take place from June 16 until June 22. Leading aerospace, aviation and defense companies from around the world typically take part in both events.
A ceasefire agreement reached this month between Israel and Palestinian militant group Hamas, which it has been fighting in Gaza, remains in effect, as does another truce agreement struck last year between Israel and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.


Emirati explorer circles Antarctica in two helicopters with adventurers

Updated 26 January 2025
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Emirati explorer circles Antarctica in two helicopters with adventurers

  • The journey took a month and covered 19,050 kilometers
  • Explorers encounter massive icebergs, frozen rivers and strong winds

LONDON: Emirati explorer Ibrahim Sharaf Al-Hashemi participated in an air mission that completed the first circular flight around Antarctica using two helicopters.

Al-Hashemi is the first Emirati to participate in this historic expedition, which launched on Dec. 4, 2024, and concluded on Jan. 17, 2025, according to WAM, the official news agency of the UAE.

The journey covered 19,050 kilometers and took a month, starting and ending at Union Glacier Camp. The trip reportedly took seven years of meticulous planning to tackle the region’s logistical challenges and extreme weather.

The team flew over remote icy landscapes under explorer Frederik Paulsen’s leadership, encountering massive icebergs, frozen rivers and strong winds.

Al-Hashemi’s endeavor illustrates the UAE’s growing role in global missions and long-haul flights in harsh environments, WAM added.


Palestinian health ministry in Gaza Strip says war toll at 47,306

Updated 26 January 2025
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Palestinian health ministry in Gaza Strip says war toll at 47,306

  • New bodies are found under the rubble
  • Health ministry said war had also left 111,483 people wounded

GAZA STRIP: The Palestinian health ministry in the Gaza Strip said on Sunday the death toll from the war with Israel had reached 47,306, with numbers rising in spite of a ceasefire as new bodies are found under the rubble.
The ministry said hospitals in the Gaza Strip had received 23 bodies in the past 72 hours — 14 “recovered from under the rubble,” five who “succumbed to their injuries” from earlier in the war, and four new fatalities.
It did not specify how the new fatalities occurred.
The ministry said the war had also left 111,483 people wounded.
Some Gazans have died from wounds inflicted before the ceasefire, with the health system in the Palestinian territory largely destroyed by more than 15 months of fighting and bombardment.
The ministry again reiterated its appeal for Gazans to submit information about dead or missing people to help update its records.
The war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas was sparked by the militant group’s October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people on the Israeli side, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.


Sudan army chief visits HQ after recapture from paramilitaries

Sudan’s army chief Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. (File/AFP)
Updated 26 January 2025
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Sudan army chief visits HQ after recapture from paramilitaries

  • Army’s recapture of the General Command of the Armed Forces is its biggest victory in the capital since reclaiming Omdurman
  • Attack on Friday on Saudi Hospital in the besieged North Darfur state capital El-Fasher killed 70 people: WHO

PORT SUDAN: Sudan’s army chief visited on Sunday his headquarters in the capital Khartoum, two days after forces recaptured the complex, which paramilitaries had encircled since the war erupted in April 2023.
“Our forces are in their best condition,” Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan told army commanders at the reclaimed headquarters close to the city center and airport.
The army’s recapture of the General Command of the Armed Forces is its biggest victory in the capital since reclaiming Omdurman, Khartoum’s twin city on the Nile’s west bank, nearly a year ago.
In a statement on Friday, the army said it had merged troops stationed in Khartoum North (Bahri) and Omdurman with forces at the headquarters, breaking the siege of both the Signal Corps in Khartoum North and the General Command, just south across the Nile River.
Since the early days of the war, when the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) quickly spread through the streets of Khartoum, the military had to supply its troops inside the headquarters via airdrops.
Burhan was himself trapped inside for four months before emerging in August 2023 and fleeing to the coastal city of Port Sudan.
The recapture of the headquarters follows other gains for the army.
Earlier this month, troops regained control of Wad Madani, just south of Khartoum, securing a key crossroads between the capital and surrounding states.
The war in Sudan has unleashed a humanitarian disaster of epic proportions.
Tens of thousands of people have been killed and, according to the United Nations, more than 12 million uprooted.
Famine has been declared in parts of Sudan but the risk is spreading for millions more people, a UN-backed assessment said last month.
Particularly in the country’s western Darfur region and in Kordofan in the south, families have been forced to eat grass, animal fodder and peanut shells to survive.
During Sunday prayers in Rome, Pope Francis lamented how the country has become the site of “the most serious humanitarian crisis in the world.”
He called on both sides to end the fighting and urged the international community to “help the belligerents find paths to peace soon.”
Both sides have been accused of targeting civilians and indiscriminately shelling residential areas, with the RSF specifically accused of ethnic cleansing, systematic sexual violence and laying siege to entire towns.
The United States announced sanctions this month against RSF leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, accusing his group of committing genocide.
A week later, it also imposed sanctions against Burhan, accusing the army of attacking schools, markets and hospitals, as well as using food deprivation as a weapon of war.
Across the country, up to 80 percent of health care facilities have been forced out of service, according to official figures.
A deadly attack late Friday on the Saudi Hospital in the besieged North Darfur state capital El-Fasher killed 70 people and injured 19 others, the World Health Organization said on Sunday.
“At the time of the attack, the hospital was packed with patients receiving care,” WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X.
In a rare statement addressing the targeting of health care in Sudan, Saudi Arabia also condemned the attack as a “violation of international law and international humanitarian law.”
AFP could not independently verify which of Sudan’s warring sides had launched the attack.
However, local activists reported that the hospital was hit by a drone after the RSF issued an ultimatum demanding army forces and their allies leave the city in advance of an expected offensive.
The WHO chief said that another facility in North Darfur’s Al-Malha, just north of El-Fasher, had also been attacked in recent days.
“We continue to call for a cessation of all attacks on health care in Sudan, and to allow full access for the swift restoration of the facilities that have been damaged,” Ghebreyesus said.
“Above all, Sudan’s people need peace. The best medicine is peace,” he added.