The Iranian authorities are resorting to using cameras in public places to identify women who violate the country’s hijab law, local media reported.
Obtrusive measures implemented in the aftermath of widespread anti-government protests last year combine the deployment of security cameras with the withholding of public services to violators, effectively replacing the morality police whose acts sparked months of turmoil.
Iranian activists say the measures have failed to make much progress against anti-hijab resistance and may exacerbate economic constraints if they result in the closure of businesses.
For decades, women who refused to wear the hijab were targeted by morality police who patrolled crowded public locations in vans. The vehicle’s male and female crew will be on the lookout for “un-Islamic dress and behaviour.”
A report by Reuters quoted residents saying the vans have mainly gone from the streets of the cities where they used to patrol after the protests presented Iran’s religious leadership with their largest legitimacy problem since the 1979 Islamic revolution.
“We are not scared of the regime’s threats. We want freedom … This path will continue until we regain our country from the clerics,” Maryam, a high school girl in Iran’s western Kermanshah city, said, according to the report.
Protests in Iran
Iran has been rocked by sweeping protests since September 16, over the death of a 22-year-old woman, Mahsa Amini, in the custody of Iran’s morality police.
Her death has since ignited anger over several issues, including the restrictions imposed on personal freedoms and strict rules regarding women’s clothing, as well as the living and economic crisis that Iranians suffer from, not to mention the strict laws imposed by the regime and its political and religious composition in general.
