Drones, informers and apps: Iran intensifies surveillance on women to enforce hijab law

[duluxe]

An Iranian policeman in Tehran. Women can have their car impounded if they are reported to have been seen without a hijab. No proof is required. Photograph: Wana News Agency/Reuters

Drones, informers and apps: Iran intensifies surveillance on women to enforce hijab law​

ike many women in Iran, Darya is used to feeling under surveillance. Yet in recent months, the 25-year-old finance analyst from northern Tehran says that she never knows who could be watching her every move.

She says she has received messages from the police before warning her of suspected violations of the country’s strict hijab laws, but last November she was sent an SMS message containing her car registration plate that stated the exact time and place that she had been recorded driving without her head properly covered. Next time it happened, the SMS warned, her car would be impounded.


“It was really unsettling,” she says.

“When you receive these messages you don’t know who has reported you – and the police never seem to have proof of the violation.”

After widespread outcry last year, the Iranian authorities said they would suspend enforcement of the new, strict, hijab laws, which impose draconian penalties – including fines and prison sentences – on women found in breach of the mandatory dress code.

 

[laksaboy]

Tech in Iran comes from China. They've had plenty of experience managing Xinjiang.

Hikvision, DJI etc.

 

[True Believer]

Iran has the fastest growing church in the world as many Iranians, particularly younger generations, have become disillusioned with the current barbaric Islamic regime. This has led some to seek alternative spiritual paths. The perceived failures of the govt to deliver on promises and their authoritarian ways of enforcing Islam, law and order, have created a spiritual vacuum that many are finding fulfilled through Christianity.