Tag: Mahsa Amini

Injury of 16-year-old Iranian girl not wearing headscarf in Tehran sparks anger

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A mysterious injury suffered by a 16-year-old girl who boarded a Metro train in Iran’s capital without a headscarf has reignited anger just after the one-year anniversary of the death of Mahsa Amini and the nationwide protests it sparked.

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What happened in the few seconds after Armita Geravand entered the train on Sunday remain in question. While a friend told Iranian state television that she hit her head on the station’s platform, the soundless footage aired by the broadcaster from outside of the car is blocked by a bystander. Just seconds later, her limp body is carried off.

Geravand’s mother and father appeared in state media footage saying a blood pressure issue, a fall or perhaps both contributed to their daughter’s injury.

Activists abroad have alleged Geravand may have been pushed or attacked because she was not wearing the hijab. They demand an independent investigation by the United Nations’ fact-finding mission on Iran, citing the theocracy’s use of pressure on victims’ families and state TV’s history of airing hundreds of coerced confessions.

Geravand’s injury also comes as Iran has put its morality police – whom activists implicate in Amini’s death over her alleged loose hijab – back on the street, and as lawmakers push to enforce even stricter penalties for those flouting the required head covering.

“Girls are subjected to violence on the streets, and then their families are compelled to protect the government responsible for that violence,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran.


For observant Muslim women, the head covering is a sign of piety before God and modesty in front of men outside their families. In Iran, the hijab – and the all-encompassing black chador worn by some – has long been a political symbol as well, particularly after becoming mandatory in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Iran and neighboring Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are the only countries where the hijab remains mandatory for women.

Since Amini’s death and the large-scale protests subsided, many women in Tehran can be seen without the hijab in defiance of the law.

Geravand suffered her injury Sunday morning at the Meydan-E Shohada, or Martyrs’ Square, Metro station in southern Tehran. Rumors about how she suffered the injury quickly circulated.

By Tuesday, the Hengaw Organization for Human Rights, which reports on abuses in Iran’s western Kurdish region, published a photograph it said showed Geravand at the hospital, her head wrapped in bandages as she remains in a coma.

Geravand “was physically attacked by authorities in the Shohada station at Tehran Metro for what they perceived as noncompliance with the compulsory hijab,” Hengaw alleged, citing reports it said it received. “As a result, she sustained severe injuries and was transported to the hospital.”

The Associated Press has not been able to confirm the exact circumstances of what caused Geravand’s injuries.

Late Wednesday, Iranian state television aired what appeared to be nearly all the surveillance camera footage covering the 16 minutes Geravand spent inside of the Metro station before her injury. She entered at 6:52 a.m., then went down an escalator. The sole gap, about a minute and a half, occurs before she reaches the turnstile gate where she uses her Metro card. The footage includes her shopping for a snack, then walking to and waiting on the platform for the train.

In the mute footage, Geravand, whom activists describe as a taekwondo athlete, appears calm and healthy. An AP frame-by-frame analysis of the footage showed no signs of the aired video being manipulated.

At 7:08 a.m., Geravand enters the No. 134 train car – the last on the train and likely a women-only compartment. A new conductor for the train walks up as she enters, his body blocking the view of door she walks through. Within four seconds, a woman steps backwards out of the train and just a sliver of Geravand’s head can be seen as she lies on the floor of the train. Women then pull Geravand’s limp body out and run for help as the train moves off.

Iranian state TV’s report, however, did not include any footage from inside the train itself and offered no explanation on why it hadn’t been released. Most train cars on the Tehran Metro have multiple CCTV cameras, which are viewable by security personnel.

“Refusing to publish the footage only increases doubts about the official narrative,” the Oslo-based group Iran Human Rights said.

Emergency medical technicians took Geravand to Fajr Hospital, which is at a Iranian air force base and one of the the closest medical facilities to the station. In the time since her injury, security forces have arrested a journalist for Shargh newspaper who went to the hospital, according to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. Shargh, a reformist newspaper, helped lead reporting surrounding Amini’s death as well.

Already, Geravand’s injury has drawn international attention, something Iran’s government has sought to dismiss. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wrote online: “Once again a young woman in #Iran is fighting for her life. Just because she showed her hair on the subway. It’s unbearable.”

U.S. Deputy Special Envoy for Iran Abram Paley also wrote that he was “shocked and concerned about reports that Iran’s so-called morality police have assaulted 16-year-old Armita Geravand.”

Iranian authorities likely worry about this incident escalating into popular anger like in Amini’s case. Women continue to ignore the hijab law despite the growing crackdown. That includes what Shargh described as Tehran’s city government hiring of some 400 people as “hijab guards” to give verbal warnings, prevent uncovered women from entering subway cars and hand them over to police.

(AP)



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The women of Iran deserve a tough EU line

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The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not represent in any way the editorial position of Euronews.

Mahsa Amini’s example continues to challenge us, in Sweden, in Europe and beyond to dare to tell the truth and stand up for what is right, which is why I nominated her for this year’s Sakharov Prize, MEP David Lega writes.

One year ago Jina Mahsa Amini dared to defy the Iranian regime by showing her hair in public. For this they murdered her. 

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But she was not so easily disappeared, and her death was not mourned in silence. The world remains captivated and inspired by her courage.

The mass protests which followed Mahsa Amini’s murder showed not only the brutality but insecurity of a regime born in violence and marked, ever since, by an embrace of repression and regional unrest. 

A regime which uses its morality police to enforce political submission at home. Which supports Hezbollah, Hamas and other terrorist organizations abroad. 

Which seeks “death to Israel”, stakes its future on the Chinese Communist Party and aligns itself with Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-Un, Bashar al-Assad and Nicolás Maduro. 

And which now sends its death machines to Russia for the indiscriminate killing of Ukrainians.

Iranians are the ones who have suffered the most

To combat the atrocities sponsored by this regime is why, last autumn, our KD party and I were the first in the Riksdag and in the European Parliament to push for calling a spade a spade and finally labelling the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) a terrorist organization. 

It’s why, in January, I championed the European Parliament’s resolution stating the clear fact that the terrible human rights abuses being carried out in Iran put at risk ongoing efforts to revive the nuclear agreement with the EU and EU partners — and why I then voted to suspend these talks. 

We can never accept the Iranian regime’s ability to wield a nuclear weapon; but nor has that regime earned the sanctions relief a nuclear deal would inevitably bring.

It is of course Iranians who have suffered the most. Those in Iran who tell the truth about this, who push back, risk imprisonment and worse. 

We have seen recurring mass protests: against oppression, corruption and poor governance — and in response, recurring crackdowns. 

Last year, more than 500 protesters inspired by Mahsa Amini were killed. Her uncle and father have been inexplicably detained. The regime is frightened more people will take to the streets.

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This is why I nominated Mahsa Amini for the Sakharov Prize

“Women, Life, and Freedom”: this was the message inspired by Mahsa Amini. It is a universal message of dignity and opportunity, fullness and fairness — for women everywhere, and indeed for all people: since to silence and immure women is to stagnate, and ultimately die, as a society. 

And yet it is a message of hope Iran’s sclerotic leadership simply cannot abide, much less deliver.

Mahsa Amini’s example continues to challenge us, in Sweden, in Europe and beyond: to dare to tell the truth, stand up for what is right — and keep alive, always, our hope and drive for a better tomorrow. To fight injustice.

It’s why I nominated her — in our Swedish press and in the European People’s Party (EPP), the Christian Democratic group in the European Parliament — for the European Parliament’s 2023 Sakharov Prize, an honour given to an extraordinary defender of human dignity and human rights. 

It’s why I called for a debate in last week’s plenary session, to commemorate Mahsa Amini at the one-year mark of her murder — and why I am so determined now, following our EPP Group’s official endorsement, to carry her nomination forward to the entire European Parliament: to show our active and ongoing support for “Women, Life and Freedom” in Iran.

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Engaging with Tehran means betraying all those still fighting for freedom

And it’s why, finally, I believe neither my country of Sweden nor the EU should engage the Iranian regime further on any outstanding issues, including revived nuclear talks — until all European citizens unjustly detained in Iran are returned safely home. 

Why should the brutal treatment and even execution of innocent victims be rewarded with face time or face-saving measures? 

This would betray the cause of Mahsa Amini and all those women and men still fighting for life and freedom.

Unfortunately, we have seen the Belgian government — and now (again), it seems, the US administration — making prisoner swaps. 

Of course, I welcome, and celebrate together with their families, the safe return of all those held hostage in Iran. 

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But will such ad hoc exchanges, sometimes bought at great cost, protect our citizens in the long run? Will they deter more malign actions on the part of the regime? Even more fundamentally, what has happened to the principle “no negotiations with terrorists”? 

I believe such deals are the wrong approach, for I fear they only encourage more hostage-taking down the road.

A tough, united stance to keep the authoritarian regime in check

The EU should rather use all the tools we have to pressure the Iranian regime to change: by labelling the IRGC as terrorists, by raising the costs of human rights abuses with more EU sanctions — and by refusing to return to the table until all wrongly held EU citizens are freed. 

More than this, we in the European Union need a tough, coordinated, united stance vis-a-vis Iran together with the United States, United Kingdom and all our global partners. The bad behaviour of this authoritarian regime must be checked.

The struggle for women, for life and for freedom continues in Iran and around the world. The spark of Mahsa Amini’s vision for a better future, fanned by her extraordinary courage, continues to burn bright. 

Let’s honour her memory and the memory of all those who have suffered so much in taking up her cause. Let’s dare to follow her lead.

MEP David Lega (Kristdemokraterna/Sweden), is the Standing Rapporteur for Iran in the European People’s Party (EPP) Group in the European Parliament.

At Euronews, we believe all views matter. Contact us at [email protected] to send pitches or submissions and be part of the conversation.

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Iran one year after Mahsa Amini’s death

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The 22-year-old’s death on 16 September sparked one of the largest – and most significant – waves of dissent to shake the Islamic Republic in years.

Security forces in Iran have prepared themselves well for the first anniversary of Mahsa Amini’s death. 

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The young Kurdish woman died on 16 September 2022 in the custody of the Iranian morality police (known as Irshad Patrol), sparking major nationwide protests.  

One year on, the political and social effects of her death still ripple through the country. 

Several hundred demonstrators were killed and more than 20,000 people were arrested during the protests that lasted several months. It is known as the “Woman Life Freedom” movement, reflecting the slogan used by those opposed to the Islamic Republic. 

Dozens of the regime’s security forces and its infamous Basij force were also killed and injured during the unrest.

But what impact have the protests had on Iran? 

Resistance to compulsory hijab has become a sign of protest

In Iran, women must cover their hair with a headscarf by law. 

Even before last year’s protest movement, Iranian women would commonly be seen wearing it loosely around their heads or at times their shoulders in defiance of the rules, which are deeply unpopular among large parts of the population. 

Disputes over the mandatory hijab have become one of the main issues hitting the headlines inside Iran. 

Without officially announcing their decision, Iranian authorities withdrew the morality police – who enforce the country’s strict Islamic dress codes and rules – from the streets in the weeks and months following Amini’s death. 

Violence perpetrated by the morality police towards women and girls is widely cited as one of the main factors leading up to the dissent. 

Now Iranian officials are trying to find a way to deal with the growing number of women who are refusing to cover their hair. 

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Yet, the balance of power between the regime and defiant women may have changed.

Although the authorities have stressed several times in recent months that those breaking the rules will be punished, observers say the current situation is vastly different from what women faced before Amini’s death.

Before the protests, Iranian officials were concerned mainly with women wearing what they called “bad hijab” – not wearing it in a way that covers the hair completely – whereas nowadays they see more and more women without a headscarf in public.

Amini herself was arrested by the morality police for alleged “bad hijab”, while travelling with her family to the capital, Tehran. She reportedly was badly beaten, suffering several violent blows to the head, though Iran’s authorities deny this. 

Morality police have returned to the streets to resume their patrols, with women seen unveiled in their cars sent warnings over SMS. However, these officers are no longer presenting themselves as “morality police” as they used to before Amini’s death. 

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A Euronews report in April found China was “turbocharging” this crackdown on Iranian women, providing crucial technologies and other support to Iran’s government. 

Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic, a few months ago spoke about the acceptance of “weak hijab”, as he called it. 

His comments could be interpreted as a sign that the Iranian authorities now prioritise dealing with women who refuse to cover up at all. 

Still, many ordinary Iranians are more concerned about skyrocketing prices and the country’s sanctions-racked economy.  

A recent measure taken by Iranian authorities to confront and punish rule breakers is the so-called “Chastity and Hijab” bill, which empowers intelligence agencies and the police to take action against women. 

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United Nations experts have labelled the legal changes, which create new penalties and heavy fines for unveiled women, “gender apartheid”.

A growing appetite for ‘regime change’

Sparked by Amini’s death, protests have morphed into one of the most significant challenges to Iran’s theocratic rulers in years. 

Unrest was eventually crushed amid a wave of violence and bloodshed, with the security forces shooting people for honking their cars in support of demonstrators and using military-grade weapons in Iranian Kurdistan. 

But protests continue in Sistan and Baluchistan, with weekly demos in the latter’s capital Zahedan persisting long after relative calm returned elsewhere in the country.

The nationwide protests in 2022 were not only one of the most serious challenges to the regime since the 1979 Islamic revolution, they were also unprecedented in terms of geographical spread and length. 

Experts suggested to Euronews in November that the society was uniquely united, with Iranian human rights lawyer Shadi Sadr saying at the time that the unrest showed the regime had lost approval among its “core supporters“.

Iranian authorities – caught off guard by the dissent – are now ultra-sensitive towards a possible return of trouble on the streets. 

The arrest of relatives of killed protestors ahead of the Amini anniversary has been interpreted by some as a sign of the regime’s insecurity. 

Disagreements inside the regime about how to deal with resistance have also been reported in recent months, with Cornelius Adebahr, a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Europe research centre, pointing to possible “power struggles” among elites back in December. 

Besides “woman, life, freedom”, many protesters chanted slogans openly calling for regime change. 

Previous leaders in Iran, such as former president Hassan Rouhani, have tried to reform the Islamic Republic from the inside, relaxing social restrictions. But the protests underscored that many Iranians, especially the young, want a complete change of system. 

Iranians are facing an economic crisis mainly due to international sanctions over the country’s nuclear programme. 

Households up and down the country are challenged by rapid and consecutive waves of price increases, with the Iranian currency losing more than 90% of its value over a decade, according to The Economist.

The authorities are worried about the possible convergence of public protests against dire economic conditions, like those that erupted in 2019 due to fuel price rises, with unrest similar to that after Amini’s death. 

An uneasy status quo between the regime and protestors has settled in but the current situation seems unstable, tense and fragile in many ways.

Any incident in the coming weeks and months could possibly break the balance of power in one way or another. Any unknowable event, like the death of Amini, could “surprise” political observers. 

In the meantime, one of the main uncertainties for the regime is who will take over from the 84-year-old supreme leader. 

Ali Khamenei has led the Islamic Republic for more than three-quarters of its tumultuous history. He is the final decision-maker in the country, especially on matters related to security and foreign policy. 

Owing to the importance of his role and position, some say that it is difficult to believe Iran and its military-security complex will not change in his absence.

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A year ago, an Iranian woman’s death sparked hijab protests; Now businesses are a new battleground

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For months, Iranian authorities did little to enforce the law on women covering their hair but now the country’s theocracy is pushing to make businesses the new battleground over the mandatory headscarf.

The effort comes ahead of the first anniversary of nationwide protests that erupted after the Sept. 16 death of Mahsa Amini in the custody of the country’s morality police. A crackdown by security forces that followed saw more than 530 people killed and over 22,000 arrested.

Explained | Mahsa Amini and the widespread protests in Iran 

These days, with uncovered women a common sight on Tehran streets, authorities have begun raiding companies where women employees or customers have been seen without the headscarf, or hijab. Iran’s parliament is discussing a law that would increase punishments on uncovered women and the businesses they frequent.

The developments could foment new unrest as parliamentary elections loom next year and the country’s economy struggles under the weight of international sanctions imposed over Iran’s nuclear program.

“If I face penalties and punishment, I will wear the headscarf since I am in a … prominent position,” said Parvaneh, a doctor who treated protesters injured during demonstrations last year. Like several other women who spoke to The Associated Press, she asked that only her first name be used for fear of reprisals.

“But the young people I treated during the protests will not pull back,” she added.

For observant Muslim women, the head covering is a sign of piety before God and modesty in front of men outside their families. In Iran, the hijab — and the all-encompassing black chador worn by some — has long been a political symbol as well, particularly after becoming mandatory in the years following the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

After the death of Amini, who was picked up for her allegedly loose headscarf, police were hesitant to strictly enforce the Islamic dress code — possibly to avoid even wider demonstrations and displays of defiance. But in recent weeks, the tone has changed.

“I’m telling you that this lack of hijab will be definitely put an end to,“ hard-line President Ebrahim Raisi said Wednesday.

Authorities have started sending warning text messages to women seen without the veil in cars: around 1 million messages were sent. In time, some 2,000 cars were confiscated and over 4,000 women referred to prosecutors.

Next, security forces scoured social media for companies with images of uncovered women in the workplace. One of the offices of Digikala, a hugely popular digital retail websites with more than 40 million active monthly users, was closed. Also briefly shut were the online bookstore Taghcheh and insurance marketplace Azki.

The crackdown extended beyond the capital of Tehran. In the northern city of Lahaijan, local health officials ordered hospitals and clinics to stop providing services to uncovered woman. In Damavand, a town some 60 kilometres (40 miles) east of Tehran, prosecutors ordered the arrest of a bank manager and a teller over serving a woman not wearing the hijab.

Outdoor café seating is now banned in the northeastern city of Mashhad and hard-liners in Isfahan want to ban the mixed working of men and women in shops.

The entertainment industry is also being watched. Police have threatened to shut down film productions that have women without headscarves working behind cameras.

Judges also have also sentenced female celebrities convicted of not wearing the veil to work in morgues as a public service, in lieu of prison time. They also have to obtain a mental health certificate from a psychologist before they can go back to their regular jobs.

“Instead of addressing people’s legitimate grievances, the regime continues to obsess over the hijab and act as if its very survival depends on whether women dress modestly,” said Haleh Esfandiari, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Center and an Iranian-American dual national who was held by Tehran in 2007.

A new bill before Iran’s parliament could make penalties for women even more serious. It calls for fines of up to 360 million Iranian rials ($720) and prison sentences for women without the headscarf. The draft legislation also calls for more strictly segregating the sexes in schools, parks, hospitals and other locations.

It also envisages fines on businesses with female staff and customers who do not wear the hijab with up to three months of their income, while offending celebrities can be banned from leaving the country and performing.

The bill would also empower intelligence agencies and the Basij — the all-volunteer force of Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard that has violently suppressed nationwide protests in the past — to confront women without hijabs.

Hard-liners have long demanded that the Basij enter the fight over the hijab, with some chanting at at Friday prayers in Tehran, “Guard, come to the street, put an end to hijab removal!”

“This is what Islam orders,” said Rahele Kargarnejad, 29, a firm supporter of wearing the hijab. Her two daughters, ages 9 and 11, wear the chador, she added.

But criticism of the proposed bill is already simmering.

Ezzeatollah Zarghami, a hard-line former Guard commander and the current minister for cultural heritage, warned that harsh sentences such as the mandatory morgue work “will cause more and significant problems instead of solving the hijab problem.”

Iran’s Supreme Court overturned a court order impounding an uncovered woman’s car for a year and revoking her license, setting a precedent.

Even if it passes, prominent lawyer Mahmoud Alizadeh Tabatabei described the draft law as meaningless since “the majority of women do not believe in it.”

“They will find out that the law is not enforceable,” Mr. Tabatabaei said.

Meanwhile, politicians known in Iran as reformists have seized on the hijab dispute as they seek to changes Iran’s theocracy from within the system. Former President Mohammad Khatami, one of the country’s most prominent reformists, has questioned whether enforcing the hijab was “wise and productive.”

With hard-liners dominating the parliament and elections coming up in March, the hijab could become a contested topic ahead of the polls.

But anti-hijab comments may not be enough as reformists have seen their popularity wane following the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal under then-President Hassan Rouhani, also considered a moderate.

On the streets, many Iranian women and girls still forgo the headscarf despite possible consequences.

“After hearing about the bill I made my decision — I will go to my school with the full hijab but I encourage my students to remove it whenever it is possible,” said Mojgan, a 37-year-old secondary school teacher.

“My students are already ahead of me on that,” she added.

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Iranian journalists remain imprisoned for reporting on Mahsa Amini’s death

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Iran is one of the most repressive countries in terms of press freedom, according to an annual report released Wednesday by Reporters Without Borders, which ranked it 177th of 180 nations. Since the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini in police custody in Tehran, 72 journalists have been arrested and 25 remain imprisoned, most of them women. FRANCE 24 takes a look at the cases of two journalists who remain behind bars over their reporting on the young Kurdish woman’s death.    

Two distraught parents embraced in the empty corridor of a hospital in Kasra, Tehran. They had just learned that their 22-year-old daughter Mahsa Amini had died, three days after being arrested by the morality police for “improperly” wearing her hijab.

Journalist Niloofar Hamedi has been held for more than seven months by the Iranian authorities for capturing this silent moment in a photograph and making it public. A correspondent for the reformist daily newspaper “Shargh”, Hamedi was the first to break the news of the young Kurdish woman’s death on September 16, 2022, by posting the photograph on Twitter.

The post provoked an unprecedented wave of unrest and several months of demonstrations against the Iranian authorities.

Arrested at her home by intelligence agents on September 20, the 31-year-old journalist was not given a trial before being put behind bars, according to Jonathan Dagher, head of the Middle East Office of Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières or RSF), which published its annual report on press freedom on Wednesday.

Journalist Elahe Mohammadi, 35, is also being held at Qarchak prison south of Tehran. A writer for the reformist daily newspaper “Hammihan”, she was arrested on September 29 for going to Amini’s home town of Saqez in Iranian Kurdistan to cover the young woman’s funeral, which gave rise to the first demonstrations following her death.

The Iranian judiciary confirmed in April that the two women were indicted on charges including collaborating with the United States, undermining national security and spreading anti-state propaganda. The two women were formally accused in October of being agents for the CIA.

 


 

Symbols of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement

Denouncing these “grotesque accusations”, RSF has demanded the release of the two journalists. In Iran, charges of espionage are punishable by death.

Hamedi and Mohammadi’s cases are of particular concern: “Both have become emblematic of the repression of press freedom in Iran, but also of the (Women, Life, Freedom) movement. They are journalists and women. So they are symbols on many levels. That’s why the Iranian government treats them much more severely,” says Dagher. “Iran tends to punish journalists who are the first to reveal information more severely, and make an example of them for other women and journalists,” adds Dagher.

Nine other female journalists are being held by the authorities, including eight arrested since the uprising that followed Amini’s death. “This is unprecedented in the country and one of the highest figures in the world,” says Dagher, noting that female journalists are being targeted “because they play an important role in covering this movement, especially in giving a voice to women who are at the forefront of the protest”.

RSF says a total of 72 Iranian journalists have been arrested since Amini’s death on September 16, with 25 still behind bars. The incarcerations earn Iran seventh place among the countries detaining the most journalists, with China in the top spot followed by Myanmar, Vietnam, Belarus, Turkey and Syria.

Released but under pressure

But even for released journalists, “deliverance can become a threat in itself, with sentences that act like swords of Damocles hanging over their heads”, says Dagher.

This is the case for Nazila Maroofian, another female journalist who investigated Amini’s death. She was sentenced without trial to a two-year suspended prison term for “spreading false news” and “anti-government propaganda” after spending 71 days in prison. Maroofian, who is from the same city as Amini, was targeted by the Iranian authorities for publishing an interview with her father on the news website “Mostaghel Online”.


Others were released in exchange for signed confessions – “statements of remorse”, or promises not to cover certain events or stories – reports RSF.

One of these journalists was Ali Pourtabatabaei, who worked for a local news website in Qom, located 140km south of Tehran, and was one of the first to reveal that young girls were being poisoned using an unidentified gas in schools across the city in November 2022.

Pourtabatabaei was arrested on March 5 amid controversy over the ongoing wave of poisonings. After several weeks in detention, “on the day of his release, the government asked journalists not to cover this story because it was upsetting the public, demanding that they rely only on official sources for all information”, says Dagher.  

Under these conditions, many Iranian journalists have been forced to flee the country. To manage the influx and provide assistance, RSF set up a crisis unit. Several have since settled in France, others in Canada, the United States and Turkey. But even there they are not safe from intimidation.

“Their families continue to be pressured in Iran,” says Dagher, who has collected several personal accounts to this effect. Other journalists have been informed by foreign intelligence services that they are potential kidnapping targets and so have been strongly advised not to travel to countries bordering Iran, including Turkey.

This article has been translated from the original in French.



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China turbocharging crackdown on Iranian women, say experts

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Iran’s government has added yet another weapon to its arsenal of oppression.

On Saturday, authorities announced they were installing cameras in public places that can identify and punish women who do not wear a headscarf, as mandated by Iranian law.

Those detected not covering their hair will receive a “warning text message”, as reports suggest Iranian officials effectively want to replace the unpopular morality police that enforces the rules with surveillance.

But Iran is not acting alone.

Though it has not publicly said so, Craig Singleton, Senior Fellow at the US-based Foundation for the Defense of Democracies “highly suspects” the high-tech cameras came from China.

Cemented by a secretive 25-year cooperation agreement struck in 2021, Beijing has helped Iran’s beleaguered regime build an intricate surveillance state, prompting some commentators to warn Iranians face a “dystopian future”.

Facial recognition technology and powerful tools for video and crowd surveillance, phone and text monitoring have all been supplied by Chinese companies, while Iranian government officials have reportedly received training on matters such as “manipulating public opinion”.

‘Gender segregation’

While the impact of the growing “surveillance state” is ubiquitous, touching all of Iran’s some 88 million people, women are particularly targeted.

“Technology continues to restrict the movement of women in Iran and prevent them from enjoying basic freedoms, like going to the spaces they want to or dressing how they like,” said Melody Kazemi of Filterwatch, a monitoring group of online censorship in Iran.

“It’s contributing to their treatment as second-class citizens, allowing women to continue to be arrested, intimated or harassed.”

Starting in September, mass anti-government protests swept through Iran after the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly violating the country’s strict dress code.

The women-led protests eventually subsided amid a torrent of violence and repression by the state, including mass arrests and executions.

Still, technology from Beijing has helped “prop up” the deeply unpopular Islamic government, Singleton told Euronews. 

While it could not “neutralise the root causes of unrest”, he said: “For now, such technologies appear necessary, albeit insufficient, for authoritarian regimes like Iran to completely eradicate all forms of dissent.”

Online tools played a central role in the regime’s crackdown on protests last year, with mobile and internet surveillance used to retrospectively identify and detain demonstrators.

China reportedly sold Tehran a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile and internet communications, though a wide variety of equipment is likely to have been used in the crackdown. 

‘It’s been happening for a long time now’

Using technology for suppression has a long history in Iran. 

“It’s not a new thing,” said Kazemi. “We shouldn’t forget that Iran already has used older technologies and pre-existing methods to oppress women, dissidents and opposition.”

In 2019, Iranian police set up an automated system of cameras to warn women flouting the dress code in their cars. 

Hundreds received text messages summoning them to the so-called morality police. However, Kazemi says there were “all sorts of false positives”, with long-haired men getting told off for not wearing hijabs.

“No matter where these technologies come from. Even in a democratic country with an independent judiciary, they go wrong and produce errors all the time,” she said. “They are designed in a way that automates human rights violations.”

Behind China-Iran cooperation is, of course, money.

Chinese surveillance firms, like Tiandy, Hikvision, and Dahua, are “keenly focused” on finding new markets outside of mainland China, which is already “saturated” with intrusive surveillance, claims Singleton.

Part of this is testing whether Chinese tech can be rolled out overseas.

“Iran has transformed itself into a Middle East incubator for Beijing’s techno-authoritarianism, in essence enabling Chinese firms to deploy their systems abroad to determine whether they are compatible with non-Chinese networks,” said Singleton.

He called such “interoperability” essential if these “Chinese firms want to market their surveillance products to other authoritarian regimes.”

But there are geopolitical motives, too.

“Beijing’s great-power ambitions hinge, in part, on… [its] technological supremacy,” said Singleton – something “the US and its allies have fallen short in countering.”

Much high-tech equipment has been developed amid China’s repression of Uyghur Muslims and other ethnic minorities, which the US has called a “genocide”. It has involved monitoring smartphone activity and gathering biometric data, including DNA, blood type, fingerprints, voice recordings and face scans, alongside mass detentions and sterilization.

‘There’s a lot we still don’t know’

But Beijing is not the only country driving Iran’s technological control, with some technologies being homegrown.

An investigation by The Intercept found that authorities had baked SIAM spyware into the country’s mobile networks to track, decrypt messages and block internet access on smartphones.

Other stuff comes from the West.

In December, the US blacklisted a Chinese video surveillance company Tiandy Technologies provided facial recognition technology to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, widely considered the true power-makers in Iran. 

The processors for its video recording systems were reportedly made by the US semiconductor giant Intel Corp, though it “ceased doing business with Tiandy following an internal review.” 

Still, researcher Kazemi said big questions hung over what technologies were being used and where they came from.

She warned that Iran’s regime could also be overinflating claims around the tech it had in a bid to intimidate people and deter future dissent.

“Just because the Iran government says they are using this type of technology, I wouldn’t rely on it one way or another,” she said. “It could just be rhetoric.”

“There is an appetite from the government to suggest that they are getting better and more efficient as more and more people are trying to resist.”

In any case, Melody said more research was needed into technology and its uses around the world, with much currently shrouded in mystery. 

“We need to get more accurate information to give people better advice on how to resist them.”



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2022: The Year of the Angry Woman on-screen

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Mia Goth as Pearl in ‘Pearl’
| Photo Credit: A24

After a gruelling couple of years lost to the pandemic, cinema made a comeback in 2022, and how! We saw the larger-than-life heroes return to the screens with jaw-dropping action sequences, and space was made for fables on imperfect parents and their misguided efforts at expressing love; we had the movies to turn to during our recovery for a good laugh.

But the anxieties and horrors of the economic slowdown, an impending climate crisis, and the questions of existentialism that the pandemic birthed still lurk in the dark crevices of our minds. Cinema has justifiably absorbed these sensibilities and reflected them on the screen for all of us to gaze at, while looking within ourselves. We had the  Jaws-inspired Jean Jacket monster in Nope that revels in feeding on people, and, in the process, swallowing the lives they’ve built for themselves. Then, we also were witness to the cruel monsters lurking underneath our smiles in Smile. But one thing the horror slashers and cathartic dark comedies this year had in common was the sheer number of women championing our anxieties.

While it is interesting and encouraging to see women occupy space on our screen, the reason they fit into the roles perfectly is a tad complicated. A  BBC analysis of the World Gallup Poll points to a widening rage gap. In 2012 both men and women reported anger and stress at similar levels; however, nine years later, women are angrier by a margin of six percentage points with the pandemic playing a very significant role. 

The pandemic was disproportionately cruel to women — they were driven out of the workforce and forced to tend to childcare duties and household responsibilities, putting a strain on their economic independence. A global study found that women did three times more childcare duties than men. 2022 also gave women a lot to be angry about: women in the United States of America lost their right to abortion with the overturning of  Roe v. Wade, the Taliban in Afghanistan banned women from universities and kept the corridors of learning out of their reach, and the regime in Iran lynched women for participating in the anti-regime protests triggered by the killing of Mahsa Amini.

Women in cinema are amplifying the shared anxieties and anger of being a woman in the contemporary world in their own ways.

Do you know a woman who has been asked to smile by a stranger on the street? Do you wish to silence that stranger? Maybe Smile is your best bet. Starring Sosie Bacon, this tale explores mental health and generational trauma that daughters inherit from their mothers, a theme Natasha Lyonne explored through the character of Nadia Vulvokov, another infamous grumpy female protagonist, in the second season of  Russian Doll.

A still from Apple TV+’s ‘Bad Sisters’

A still from Apple TV+’s ‘Bad Sisters’
| Photo Credit:
Apple

Kith and kin united to shower rage over a misogynist man in  Apple TV+’s  Bad Sisters. The sisters plotted to kill their sister’s abusive husband and their imagination in all its gore and violence made its way to the screen, supplemented with dark comedy, pushed the audience to root for their erroneous antics.

Rage has largely been considered a masculine emotion, and women were forced to only express secondary emotions and consequences of a man’s rage. Watching women own their rage without facing brutal and unjustified consequences was indeed refreshing.

Armed with a stellar cast, Halina Reijn’s Bodies Bodies Bodies dared to turn the virginal final girl trope on its head by killing off men in the very beginning and keeping the highly sexual, morally-complicated female characters alive. The girls who survive the stormy night are rich brats to whom self-awareness does not come easy. Watching flawed female characters survive in a horror film makes me think of the famous internet phrase, “I support women’s rights but more importantly, I support women’s wrongs.” 

A sanitised portrayal of women on-screen has haunted women in real life as it paints an inaccurate picture of womanhood which often strips them of their needs, wants and desires. They are left to the mercy of a man’s story, and most of their emotions are secondary. Acknowledging women’s missteps without disproportionately punishing them goes a long way in understanding the women around us. 

Call Me By Your Name filmmaker Luca Guadagnino also seems to have taken supporting women’s wrongs a little too seriously in his film  Bones and All by letting Maren Yearly (Taylor Russell) feast on men. She’s often drenched in their blood and enjoys the human flesh while also being capable of empathy, friendship and love. On that note, cannibalism has served as a metaphor for a lot of socio-political and psychological commentary this year, with Mimi Cave’s  Fresh drawing lessons on class and patriarchy through the act of eating human flesh.

The mother of all horror films in 2022 (pun intended), Barbarian, manifests the generations of rape and incest as a supernatural female who lives in the basement of a house in Detroit and goes after men who hurt women, a sordid tale of female solidarity if you may. Watching Lib Wright (Florence Pugh) gives the finger to religion and patriarchy in The Wonder by lying and burning down a house for a girl she has known only for two weeks compels us to cheer for her misdeeds.

Mia Goth as Pearl

Mia Goth as Pearl
| Photo Credit:
A24

However, Ti West’s  X and  Pearl starring Mia Goth take the cake with their portrayal of a rural American girl who dreams, and pushes back when she is deprived of the means to pursue them. Letting the titular anti-heroine dream of vanity without punishing her makes the  X series stand out. 

One positive side to the phenomenon of depicting violent female rage is that it makes way for women to express anger, an emotion even toddlers, until today, associated with male faces. With the influx of anti-heroines, we now have female characters as symbols of rage.

73 years after Simone de Beauvoir wrote in her book  The Second Sex — “He is the Subject, he is the Absolute – she’s the Other,” we might just be taking baby steps to remedy the stories we tell about women and give agency to the Other.

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Defiant Iranians protest violent crackdown and killings of youths

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Iranians took to the streets around the country again on Friday to protest against the killings of youths in a widely documented crackdown on demonstrations sparked by Mahsa Amini’s death.

The clerical state has been gripped by six weeks of protests that erupted when Amini, 22, died in custody after her arrest for an alleged breach of Iran’s strict dress rules for women.

Security forces have struggled to contain the women-led protests, that have evolved into a broader campaign to end the Islamic republic founded in 1979.

Videos widely shared online showed people rallying Friday across Iran, including in Mahabad, the flashpoint western city where a rights group said security forces had killed at least four people in the past two days.

The demonstrations came despite a crackdown that the Oslo-based Iran Human Rights group said Friday had killed at least 160 protesters, an increase of 19 since its last toll on Tuesday, and including more than two dozen children.

IHR called for “diplomatic pressure” on Iran to be stepped up, with its head Mahmood Amiry-Moghaddam warning of a “serious risk of mass killings of protesters which the UN is obligated to prevent”.

At least another 93 people were killed during separate protests that erupted on September 30 in the southeastern city of Zahedan over the reported rape of a teenage girl by a police commander, IHR says.

Automatic gunfire

Violence erupted in Zahedan again on Friday “when unknown people opened fire” killing one person and wounding 14 others, including security forces, the official IRNA news agency reported.

IHR said security forces opened fire at protesters in the southeastern city, with deaths reported “including a 12-year-old boy”.

The Norway-based Hengaw organisation added that two more people were killed Thursday in Baneh, another city near Iran’s western border with Iraq.

The bloodshed in Mahabad came as mourners paying tribute to Ismail Mauludi, a 35-year-old protester killed on Wednesday night, made their way from his funeral towards the governor’s office, Hengaw said.

“Death to the dictator,” protesters yelled, using a slogan aimed at Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as the governor’s office burned, in an online video verified by AFP.

Other verified footage showed clashes outside the western city of Khorramabad near the grave of Nika Shahkarami, a 16-year-old killed by security forces, where dozens of people were marking the end of the traditional 40-day mourning period.

“I’ll kill, I’ll kill, whoever killed my sister,” they were heard chanting, in a video posted online by the US-based Human Rights Activist News Agency (HRANA).

Dozens of men were seen hurling projectiles under fire as they drove back security forces.

At least 20 security personnel have been killed in the Amini protests, rights groups say, and at least another eight in Zahedan, according to an AFP tally based on official reports.

Local media meanwhile quoted a joint statement from Iran’s intelligence ministry and the Revolutionary Guards accusing the United States’ Central Intelligence Agency of plotting against the Islamic republic.

The CIA was conspiring with spy agencies in Israel, Britain and Saudi Arabia, “to spark riots” in Iran, the statement said.

>> ‘People of Iran need Europe’, former Iranian TV host Ehsan Karami says

‘More killing would encourage protesters’

The latest Amini protests were held in defiance of warnings from Khamenei and ultra-conservative President Ebrahim Raisi, who appeared to try to link protests to a mass shooting Wednesday at a key Shiite Muslim shrine in the southern city of Shiraz after prayers, that state media said killed at least 15 worshippers.

But the protests triggered by Amini’s death on September 16 show no signs of dwindling, inflamed by public outrage over the crackdown that has cost the lives of many other young women and girls.

The Iranian authorities have had to quell the protests through various tactics, possibly in a bid to avoid fuelling yet more anger among the public.

They staged rallies on Friday in Tehran and other cities to denounce the Shiraz attack, which was claimed by the Islamic State group.

“I doubt that the security forces have ruled out conducting a larger-scale violent crackdown,” said Henry Rome, an Iran expert at the Washington Institute.

For now, they “appear to be trying other techniques” including “arrests and intimidation, calibrated internet shutdowns, killing some protesters, and fuelling uncertainty”, Rome said.

“They may be making the calculation that more killing would encourage, rather than deter, protesters — if that judgement shifts, then the situation would likely become even more violent,” he added.

An official Iranian medical report concluded Amini’s death was caused by illness, due to “surgery for a brain tumour at the age of eight”, and not police brutality.

Lawyers acting for her family have rejected the findings and called for a re-examination of her death.

(AFP)



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