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image source, EPA
Iranian women walk with a cleric on a Tehran street in September 2022.
Iranian authorities have started installing cameras in public places to identify women who go uncovered, authorities announced.
Women who do not cover their hair will receive “text messages warning about the consequences,” police said. The measure seeks to help overcome the “resistance against the hijab law”he added.
With this he was alluding to the protests that were unleashed last year by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish woman arrested for allegedly violating the hijab rule.
Since Amini’s death, an increasing number of women have removed the veil in iranparticularly in the larger cities, although they are at risk of arrest.
A police statement published by the state news agency of the Islamic Republic specified that the system uses “smart” cameras and other tools to identify and send “warning messages to violators of the hijab law.”
Women have been legally required to cover their hair with a headscarf (hijab) since the Islamic Revolution instituted a strict interpretation of religious law in 1979.
Women who break the law face fines or arrest.
image source, Getty Images
Women burned their headscarves to protest the death of Mahsa Amini last year.
The weekend police statement described the veil as “one of the foundations of the civilization of the Iranian nation” and urged business owners to abide by the rules through “diligent inspections.”
The hijab, a “religious necessity”
On Saturday, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi reiterated that Iranian women must wear the hijab as a “religious necessity.”
However, Iran’s judicial chief, Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei, warned that widespread crackdown may not be the best way to encourage women to follow the rules.
“Cultural problems must be solved by cultural means. If we want to solve such problems by arresting and imprisoning, the costs will increase and we will not see the desired effectiveness,” he said.
Public attacks on unveiled women are frequent.
A video showing a man throwing yogurt at two unveiled women was widely shared last week. The women were arrested under the hijab law and the man was also detained.
Since December, thousands of protesters in Iran have been arrested and four have been executed. However, the more radical groups are demanding that more be done to enforce the law.
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