World Urged to Do More for Oppressed Iranian women

Amnesty International calls on the international community to intervene as the Iranian authorities are “doubling down” on their crackdown on Iranian women and girls who defy “degrading” compulsory headscarf laws.

In an analysis published on July 26, the London-based human rights group says that since mid-April, more than a million women have received text messages warning that their vehicles could be confiscated after they were captured on camera without their headscarves. 

Meanwhile, scores of women have been suspended or expelled from universities, barred from sitting final exams and denied access to banking services and public transport, as hundreds of businesses have been forcibly closed for failing to enforce hijab rules on their customers. 

Earlier this month, “Morality Police” patrols returned to the streets to enforce compulsory veiling. Videos shared on social media show women being violently assaulted by officials in Tehran and other cities. In one incident, security forces fired teargas to disperse residents of the northern city of Rasht who protested an attempt to arrest women accused of violating the hijab requirement.

“Morality policing in Iran is back,” says Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s Secretary General. 

“The intensified crackdown on unveiling reflects the Iranian authorities’ deplorable disregard for the human dignity and rights of women and girls to autonomy, privacy and freedom of expression, religion, and belief,” Callamard added. “It also underscores a desperate attempt by the authorities to reassert their dominance and power over those who dared to stand up against decades of oppression and inequality” during last year’s nationwide protests.

In an attempt to intensify this crackdown, Amnesty International says, the authorities presented the “Bill to Support the Culture of Chastity and Hijab” to parliament in May. Under the proposed legislation, women and girls who appear without headscarves in public spaces and on social media or who show “nakedness of a body part or wear thin or tight clothes” will face fines, confiscation of cars and communication devices, driving bans, deductions to salary and employment benefits, dismissal from work and prohibition on accessing banking services.

The draft bill also includes proposals to sentence women found guilty of defying veiling laws “on a systemic basis or in collusion with foreign intelligence and security services” to up to five years’ imprisonment as well as travel bans and forced residency in a specified location.  

Managers of public institutions and private businesses who allow unveiled employees and customers within their premises would face penalties ranging from closures to lengthy prison sentences and travel bans.

The bill proposes a range of sanctions against athletes, artists and other public figures defying veiling laws, including bans on engagement in professional activities, imprisonment, flogging and fines.

Simultaneously, the authorities have prosecuted and imposed “degrading” punishments on women who appear in public without head coverings, Amnesty International says. It cited the cases of women who were required to attend counseling sessions for “mental illness,” wash corpses in a morgue or clean government buildings.

Amnesty International urges the authorities to abolish compulsory veiling, quash all sentences for defying compulsory veiling, drop all charges against all those facing prosecution and unconditionally release anyone in detention for defying compulsory veiling. 

The group also says that the international community “must not stand idly by as the Iranian authorities intensify their oppression of women and girls.”

“The response of states should not be limited to forceful public statements and diplomatic interventions, but also involve the pursuit of legal pathways to hold Iranian officials accountable for ordering, planning, and committing widespread and systematic human rights violations against women and girls through the implementation of compulsory veiling,” says Callamard.

Governments must ensure that Iranian women and girls fleeing “gender-based persecution” can access “swift and safe refugee procedures and under no circumstances should they be forcibly returned to Iran,” she adds.