Spy cameras to trap Iranian hijab rebels

SURVEILLANCE cameras are being installed in Iran to catch and punish women walking in public without a headscarf, as Tehran cracks down on those defying strict dress codes.

The authorities want to rein in an increasing number of women who are defying the rule on mandatory head coverings after the death of a young woman in police custody last year ignited a nationwide protest movement against the regime.

The cameras will be installed in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalise unveiled women, the notorious morality police said yesterday.

After they have been identified, violators will receive “warning texts as to the consequences”, they added, saying the move is aimed at “preventing resistance against the hijab law”.

It became compulsory for women and girls over nine to wear a headscarf in public two years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Under Hassan Rouhani, the former president, rules were relaxed. But since the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisim came to power in 2021, the morality police have taken a harder line against women who flout the rules, demanding a “complete hijab”.

Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media since the death of Mahsa Amini, 22, last September. Women have been increasingly seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets.

But last month, describing the veil as “one of the civilisational foundations of the Iranian nation”, the interior ministry said there would be no retreat on the issue.

It urged citizens to confront unveiled women, which in the past has emboldened hardliners to attack women. Last week, a video went viral showing a man throwing yoghurt at an unveiled mother and daughter in a shop in the holy city of Mashad.

It happened as Iran’s judiciary chief threatened to prosecute women who defy the country’s strict rules on head coverings “without mercy”.

Authorities issued arrest warrants for the women for “committing a forbidden act” by removing their headscarves.

The police arrested nearly 20,000 people and killed 500 since the protests started, according to the Human Rights Activists News Agency.

One woman recently told the BBC she was shot deliberately in the eye. The PhD student was protesting in a northeastern city near Mashad in September when the bullet struck her and lodged in her head.

“You aimed at my eyes but my heart is still beating,” she said.

“Thank you for taking the sight from my eye which has opened the eyes of so many people.”

‘Thank you for taking the sight from my eye which has opened the eyes of so many people’