Paris: A claim that the notorious morality police is being disbanded by the protest-ridden regime has been rejected by Iranian activists and Westerners, who insist nothing has changed with regard to women's rights.

On social media, there were also calls for a three-day strike in Iran, which will culminate on the annual Students' Day on Wednesday, nearly three months after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman.

Amini, 22, was detained by morality police officers in Tehran for allegedly violating Iran's strict dress code, which calls for women to wear modest clothing and hijab headscarves.

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According to the US State Department, nothing we have seen indicates that the Iranian leadership is reversing its violent treatment of peaceful protesters or improving its treatment of women and girls.

According to Germany's foreign ministry, disbanding the morality police will not change the Iranian protesters' desire to "live freely and with self-determination".

Amini's death on 16 September triggered protests led by women, which became the biggest challenge to the regime since the 1979 revolution.

Hundreds of people have died in Iran, including some security personnel.

Iran's prosecutor general, Mohammad Jafar Montazeri, was quoted as saying that morality police units formally known as Gasht-e Ershad ("Guidance Patrol") were shut down over the weekend in an unexpected move.

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Publicists, however, were suspicious of his comments, as they did not have the official seal of the Ministry of the Interior and instead appeared to be an impromptu answer to a question at a conference.

It's just a PR stunt, according to Roya Borroumand, co-founder of the US-based Abdorrahman Borroumand Center rights organization. "Until they repeal all legal restrictions on women's dress and laws governing private lives of citizens, this is just a PR stunt," she said.

Activists argued that abolishing the force would only change the way the government enforces Iran's headscarf law, a fundamental tenet of the country's clerical leadership. Additionally, disbanding the units would likely be "too little, too late" for the protesters, according to Borroumand, who now call for a complete change of government.

She said that nothing prevents other law enforcement organizations from enforcing "discriminatory laws".

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Since they were first established in 2006, when ultra-Orthodox Mahmoud Ahmadinejad served as president, morality police have become a common sight.

But the clerical leadership that came to power after the fall of the Shah in 1979 had long before that strictly enforced the laws – including the headscarf.