Iran: mass strike starts amid mixed messages about abolishing morality police

Iranian shopkeepers and lorry drivers staged a walkout in nearly 40 cities and towns on Monday after calls for a three-day nationwide general strike from protesters as the government declined to confirm a claim by a senior official that the morality police had been abolished.

Iranian newspapers instead reported an increase in patrols, especially in religious cities, requiring women to wear the hijab, and shop managers being directed by the police to reinforce hijab restrictions.

The confusion may be partly due to mixed messages being sent out by a divided regime as it seeks to quell the protests.

Iran has been rocked by 11 weeks of unrest since a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, Mahsa Amini, died in police custody after being arrested by the morality police.

Political prisoners called for the three-day protests to be supported. Posters also appeared in streets urging that the strike be respected.

Government officials continued to claim the protests are over, but also admitted many shops had been shut, blaming intimidation that they said would lead to criminal charges.

At the same time senior politicians, including the president, Ebrahim Raisi, and parliament speaker, Mohammad Qalibaf, said they will visit Tehran universities on Wednesday to debate reforms with the striking students, a tactic that has previously backfired.

In a sign that the government is not relaxing the hijab rules, the semi-official Tasnim News Agency reported on Monday that an amusement park at a Tehran shopping centre was closed by the judiciary because its operators were not wearing the hijab properly.

The reformist-leaning Ham-Mihan newspaper said that morality police had increased their presence in cities outside Tehran, where the force has been less active over recent weeks.

She also added that Basij paramilitary forces were still active at night, and probably more so outside Tehran.