2023-07-26 12:31:20
@ Amnesty International.
“The Iranian authorities are redoubling their stifling police methods and severely oppressing women and girls who dare to defy degrading mandatory veiling laws,” Amnesty International said today.
In a detailed analysis published today, the organization denounces the intensification of the repression by the authorities throughout the country against women and girls who choose not to wear the headscarf in public. In the most recent escalation, on July 16, Iranian police spokesman Saeed Montazer Almahdi announced the return of police patrols to enforce mandatory veiling and threatened legal action against women and girls who disobeyed the law. rule. This initiative has coincided with the dissemination of videos on social networks showing officials in Tehran and Rasht violently assaulting women, and security forces firing tear gas at people helping women avoid arrest in Rasht.
Official announcements reveal that, since April 15, 2023, more than a million women have received text messages warning them of the possibility of having their vehicle impounded after being caught on camera veiled . In addition, countless women have been suspended or expelled from university, banned from taking final exams, and denied access to banking services and public transportation. Hundreds of businesses have been forced to close for failing to enforce mandatory veiling. The intensification of the crackdown highlights the ambiguity of earlier claims by the Iranian authorities that they were disbanding the “morality police”, made against a background of contradictory official statements about their return to the streets of the country. .
“The ‘morality police’ have returned to Iran. The authorities are fooling no one by removing the ‘morality police’ insignia from their uniforms and patrol vans while encouraging those who apply the oppression and submission to which the Islamic Republic subjects women and girls to Let them use the same violence that killed Mahsa Zhina Amini with impunity. The current repression is intensified by mass surveillance technologies capable of identifying uncovered women in their cars and pedestrian spaces,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International.
“The intensified crackdown on the unveiled is a reflection of the Iranian authorities’ deplorable disregard for human dignity and the rights of women and girls to autonomy, privacy and freedom of expression, religion and of beliefs. It also underscores her desperate attempt to reassert her dominance and power over those who dared to stand up against decades of oppression and inequality during the “Mujer, Vida, Libertad” rebellion.
In Isfahan province, a woman who received an SMS ordering her to immobilize her car for 15 days for removing her headscarf while driving it, told Amnesty International: “Emotionally and psychologically, all these threats that [las autoridades] have done have had a very negative impact on us […] The Islamic Republic wants to show that it can go to any lengths when it comes to enforcing the mandatory veiling […] They want to make the international community believe that they are giving up violence but, in reality, they are carrying out these actions with stealth. They are definitely putting fear into our bodies.”
On June 14, 2023, the Iranian police spokesperson announced that since April 15, 2023, the police had sent nearly a million SMS alerts to women caught uncovered in their vehicle; it had sent 133,174 SMS ordering the immobilization of the vehicle for a certain time; it had seized 2,000 cars, and had referred more than 4,000 “repeat offenders” to the judiciary across the country. He added that 108,211 reports on the enforcement of mandatory headscarf laws had been collected in relation to the commission of “offences” within businesses and that 300 “offenders” had been identified and referred to the judiciary.
In an attempt to codify and further intensify this repression, on May 21, 2023, the judicial and executive authorities introduced the Chastity and Hijab Culture Support Bill to Parliament. By virtue of this legislative proposal, women and girls who appear uncovered in public spaces and on social networks, or who show “nakedness of a part of the body or wear thin or tight clothing” will be subject to a series of sanctions that will affect severely harm their human rights, including social and economic ones. These sanctions include fines, confiscation of vehicles and communication devices, a ban on driving, deductions from wages and employment benefits, dismissal from work, and a ban on accessing banking services.
The bill includes proposals to sentence women and girls found guilty of disobeying mandatory headscarf laws “systematically or in collusion with foreign intelligence and security services” to between two and five years in prison. , as well as the travel ban and compulsory residence in a specific place.
Managers of public institutions and private companies who allow unveiled employees and customers on their premises could be punished with sanctions ranging from closures to lengthy prison terms and travel bans.
The bill proposes a series of sanctions against athletes, artists and other public figures who disobey laws on the use of the headscarf, among which are the prohibition of professional activities, imprisonment, flogging and fines.
On July 23, 2023, a parliamentary committee indicated that it had sent the revised bill, consisting of 70 articles, to the plenary session of the Iranian Parliament for consideration. The revised text has not been made public.
At the same time, the authorities have used the Islamic Penal Code to prosecute and impose degrading punishments on women who appear in public without veils. Amnesty International has received the sentences handed down against six women in June or July 2023 requiring them to attend therapy sessions for “antisocial personality disorder”washing corpses in a morgue or cleaning official buildings.
This attack on the rights of women and girls comes amid a wave of hateful statements from authorities and state media calling the refusal to wear the headscarf “virus”, “social disease” or “disorder”, and the decision to appear in public without a veil is equated to “sexual depravity”.
Iranian authorities must abolish mandatory veiling, annul all convictions and sentences imposed for disobeying this rule, drop all charges against all persons prosecuted and release unconditionally anyone arrested for disobeying the mandatory use of the headscarf. The authorities must abandon their plans to punish women and girls for exercising their rights to equality, privacy and freedom of expression, religion and belief.
“The international community must not stand idly by while the Iranian authorities intensify their oppression of women and girls. The response by states must not be limited to forceful public statements and diplomatic interventions, but also entail the use of legal avenues to hold the Iranian authorities accountable for ordering, planning and committing widespread and systematic human rights violations against women and girls. through the application of the compulsory use of the veil. All governments must do everything in their power to support women and girls fleeing gender-based persecution and serious human rights violations in Iran, ensure they can access refugee procedures fast and safe and, under no circumstances, return them to Iran,” Callamard concluded.
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