Is There a Morality Police in Iran?

Since mid-September, women and girls in Iran have been staging demonstrations against the regime. Social media has been full of images of female protestors cutting off their hair and removing their Islamic head-covering in open defiance of the security forces.

These protests have their roots in the arrest of a young woman called Mahsa Amini for minor infractions of the Islamic Republic’s dress code and her subsequent death in custody.

But there have been several waves of protest since the Iranian Revolution of 1979 - all of which have been successfully repressed. So, this time is it different? Is a regime that’s been in power for decades seriously under threat?

Joining David Aaronovitch in The Briefing Room are: Khosro Kalbasi, Iran analyst at BBC Monitoring. Azadeh Moaveni, Journalist and author of Lipstick Jihad. Eskandar Sadeghi, Lecturer in Contemporary Politics and Modern History of the Middle East at Goldsmith's, University of London Ali Ansari, Professor of History at St Andrews University. Sanam Vakil, Deputy Director of the Middle East programme at Chatham House.

PHOTO: Demonstrators in the Iraqi region of Kurdistan holding pictures of Mahsa Amini (Getty Images)