Mohammad Jafar Montazeri's comments, which have yet to be confirmed by other agencies, were made at an event on Sunday.

Iran has seen months of protests over the death of Mahsa Amini in custody. She had been detained by the morality police for allegedly breaking strict rules on head coverings.

Montazeri was at a religious conference when he was asked if the morality police were being disbanded.

"The morality police had nothing to do with the judiciary and have been shut down from where they were set up," he said. Control of the force lies with the interior ministry and not with the judiciary.

Law that requires hijabs to be looked at

On Saturday, Montazeri also told the Iranian parliament that the law that requires women to wear hijabs would be looked at.

Even if the morality police are shut down, this does not mean the decades-old law will be changed.

Women-led protests, labelled "riots" by the authorities, have swept Iran since 22-year-old Amini died in custody on 16 September 2022, three days after her arrest by the morality police in Tehran.

Her death was the catalyst for the unrest but it also followed discontent over poverty, unemployment, inequality, injustice and corruption.

If confirmed, the scrapping of the morality police would be a concession, but there are no guarantees it would be enough to halt the protests, which have seen demonstrators burn their head coverings.

"Just because the government has decided to dismantle the morality police, it doesn't mean the protests are ending," one Iranian woman told the BBC.

"Even the government saying the hijab is a personal choice is not enough. People know Iran has no future with this government in power. We will see more people from different factions of Iranian society, moderate and traditional, coming out in support of women to get more of their rights back."

"We have been going without hijabs for 70 days"

Another woman said: "We, the protesters, don't care about the hijab any more. We've been going out without it for the past 70 days.

"A revolution is what we have. Hijab was the start of it and we don't want anything less than death for the dictator and a regime change."

According to CNN, Iranian state media disputed the claim that the country's morality police are being disbanded.

State television channel Al-Alam reportedly said foreign media were portraying Montazeri's comments as "the Islamic Republic retreating from the issue of hijab and modesty and claiming that it is due to the recent riots".

"However, no Islamic Republic of Iran official has stated that the Guidance Patrol has been closed."

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said the abolition of Iran's morality police could be "a positive thing" and praised the "extraordinary courage of Iranian young people, especially women, who've been leading these protests".

Iran has had various forms of "morality police" since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, but the latest version is currently the main agency tasked with enforcing Iran's Islamic code of conduct.

They began their patrols in 2006 to enforce the dress code which also requires women to wear long clothes and forbids shorts, ripped jeans and other clothes deemed immodest.

BBC