Latest news with #SaraHossain
Telegraph
15-03-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
Iran deploying drones and apps to enforce hijab wearing, UN warns
In 2024, at least 618 women were detained under the Noor plan, the UN report says. Many have been summoned to revolutionary courts, where evidence from surveillance tools, including photos and security reports, has been used to convict them. Some have been fined, while others have faced more severe punishments. 'For two years, Iran has refused to adequately acknowledge the demands for equality and justice that fuelled the protests in 2022. The criminalisation, surveillance and continued repression of protesters, families of victims and survivors - in particular women and girls - is deeply worrying,' said Sara Hossain, chairman of the Fact-Finding Mission. On Nov 23, Roshnak Alishah was lashed 14 times after being convicted of 'disturbing public chastity'. She had been arrested weeks earlier for posting a video, which showed her without the mandatory hijab, in which she confronted a man on a motorcycle who had harassed her. In March, prominent Iranian singer Mehdi Yarrahi was flogged 74 times for a song criticising the mandatory hijab. The Iranian parliament has been pushing to formalise harsher hijab laws under the Hijab and Chastity bill, which could see women sentenced to up to 10 years in prison or fined up to $12,000 (£9,000) for non-compliance. The law would also expand the role of security forces and private citizens in enforcement. While the bill was set to take effect in December 2024, Iran's Supreme National Security Council has since suspended its implementation, citing ongoing internal debate. However, human rights advocates fear that the delay is merely procedural and that the government will soon press forward with increased restrictions. 'We are unarmed and powerless' In November, authorities announced the opening of a so-called 'clinic' where young girls caught without a hijab would undergo 'scientific and psychological treatment' to correct their behaviour. Beyond digital crackdown, UN investigators conducted nearly 300 interviews with victims and witnesses, revealing deep flaws within Iran's judiciary. The report describes a legal system that operates without true independence, where victims of state abuse face further persecution, and their families are subjected to systematic intimidation. The UN mission also documented instances of extrajudicial killings, including the execution of three child protesters and three adults, later falsely classified by authorities as suicides. Further evidence uncovered by investigators details shocking accounts of sexual violence in custody. One woman, the report states, endured brutal beatings, two staged executions, and repeated sexual assault, including gang rape, during detention in 2023. 'One day, like my friends, I'll leave this doomed country and never return. Iranian women are brave and fighting every day, but a change seems impossible because they don't care about women. They have guns and no mercy, we are unarmed and powerless,' the female protester said. The UN's findings will be formally presented to the Human Rights Council on March 18.
Yahoo
14-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
U.N. report: Iran using surveillance, informants to pressure women into complying with hijab laws
March 14 (UPI) -- A U.N. fact-finding mission into Iran's treatment of women reported Friday that the Islamic Republic was resorting to extreme measures in its drive to restrict their rights, including electronic "surveillance" and pressuring the public to inform on women not wearing a hijab, which is mandatory dress code. The increased policing and prosecution of women flouting the dress code and female activists who have received long prison terms, or death sentences in some cases, comes amid increased repression of women and girls and activists demanding their human rights as part of determined government efforts to quash all dissent, the U.N. will say in a report to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday. Investigators detail authorities' use of drone-mounted cameras, fixed CCTV cameras, and facial recognition software to catch women out in public with their heads uncovered, as well as an app enabling people to use their smartphones to report women on public transport or in taxis directly to the police. Two-and-half years on from nationwide protests sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, the Iranian state was bearing down even harder, increasingly using technology to keep tabs on women, including "state-sponsored vigilantism in an apparent effort to enlist businesses and private individuals in hijab compliance, portraying it as a civic responsibility." The report is the outcome of a two-year investigation in which the mission collected 38,000 pieces of evidence and interviewed more than 280 victims and witnesses. "For two years, Iran has refused to adequately acknowledge the demands for equality and justice that fuelled the protests in 2022. The criminalization, surveillance and continued repression of protesters, families of victims and survivors, in particular women and girls is deeply worrying," said mission chair Sara Hossain. The increased persecution occurred despite President Masoud Pezeshkian pledging in his campaign in the run-up to elections in July to relax the strict enforcement of the hijab laws pursued by the administration of his predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in May. The two-year investigation found that in addition to ramping up surveillance, the government had broadened restrictions on the digital space, "extending its repression beyond Iran's borders to silence human rights defenders, including journalists, who speak up from abroad."
