Tehran: The Iranian authorities will use cameras in public places to identify women who violate the country’s hijab law, state media reported, according to CNN.
Notably, under Iran’s Islamic Sharia law, imposed after the 1979 revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes to disguise their figures. Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest.
Iranian women who don’t cover their hair risk being arrested. As part of the widespread protests, many have been disobeying the mandatory dress code, following the death of a young woman while she was being held for allegedly breaking hijab laws.
Yet, authorities don’t appear to be changing their stance on the matter.
“Kn an innovative measure and in order to prevent tension and conflicts in implementing the hijab law, Iranian police will use smart cameras in public places to identify people who break the norms,” the state-aligned Tasnim news agency quoted police as saying, CNN reported.
After the women have been identified, they would be sent warning messages which detail the specific time and place they had “violated” the law, reported CNN.
“In the context of preserving values, protecting family privacy and maintaining the mental health and peace of mind of the community, any kind of individual or collective behaviour against the law, will not be tolerated,” CNN reported quoting Tasnim.
Earlier this month, a viral video showed a man throwing yoghurt on two women for not wearing their hijab.
The video shows a male staff member removing the suspect from the store. The two women were arrested after being issued an arrest warrant for failing to wear the hijab in public, according to Mizan News Agency. Iranian officials said the incident is under investigation, and the male suspect has been arrested for a disturbance of order, reported CNN.
Later, both women were arrested for violating Iran’s dress code.
Describing the veil as “one of the civilizational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” an Interior Ministry statement said there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the issue.
It urged citizens to confront unveiled women. Such directives have in past decades emboldened hardliners to attack women without impunity.
In September 2022, Iranians took to the streets nationwide in protest for several months against Iran’s mandatory hijab law, and political and social issues across the country, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in the custody of the morality police.
Women have burned their headscarves and cut their hair, with some schoolgirls removing them in classrooms.
Those arrested for participating in anti-government demonstrations have faced various forms of abuse and torture, including electric shocks, controlled drowning, rape and mock executions.
(Except for the headline, the story has not been edited by Siasat staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
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