By Bond Robertson 
On the streets of Iran, the authorities are placing several “smart” cameras.
It should be directed at women who don’t wear hijab.
Using facial technology, the police will identify women who are defying the country’s hijab mandate.
And it is the Iranian police who report on the new surveillance, which will begin on Friday this week.
Cameras in the streets of Tehran on April 10.
Photo: ATTA KENARE/AFP
Women on the streets of Tehran, April 9, 2023.
Photo: Wana News Agency/Reuters
According to the police, women who do not cover their hair properly will receive an SMS warning about the consequences.
The goal: to prevent “resistance to the hijab law,” as the Iranian police wrote in a message they transmitted Reuters.
Wearing the hijab has been compulsory in Iran since the revolution in 1979.
– He has less strength now
Last September, 22-year-old Masha Amini died in the custody of the morality police, after being arrested for improperly wearing a headscarf.
Masha Amini passed away on September 16, 2022.
Photo: Wana News Agency/Reuters
The death led to the largest protests in Iran in more than 40 years. Women and girls have been at the forefront of the slogan “Women, Life, Freedom”.
According to Mahmoud Amiri Moghaddam, head of the Human Rights Council, it has become relatively common to see women with their hair loose on the streets of Iran.
– In cities all over Iran, women walk with visible hair and also without veils. We haven’t seen that since 1980 and it’s a clear protest against the regime,” Amiri Moghadam told NRK.
There have been several reports attacks Against a woman without a veil. Last week, two women were arrested after a man threw yogurt at them, possibly because they weren’t wearing a hijab.
Mahmoud Al-Amiri, presenter
Photo: Peter Berntsen/AFP
Al-Amiri submitted He believes the cameras are a sign of weakness from the authoritarian regime.
If they had the opportunity to coerce women as before, through physical assaults and arrests, they would have done so. But my command is present they do not have the strength to impose the veil now, and they know it.
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important to the system
Iran created the so-called morality police in 2006. After violent protests in the fall and winter, it was closed down last November. But the law requiring women to wear the veil remains.
And the police message, which was published on the Iranian news agency, stated that women who do not wear a headscarf will be identified through so-called smart cameras. Then those who break the hijab law will receive warnings.
They do not write what kind of consequences the crime will have.
According to Mahmoud Ameri Moghaddam, it could mean high fines, arrest or losing your job.
It is believed that the regime no longer dares to attack women in the streets as they did before.
They don’t have the ability to physically enforce the rules like they once did. Therefore, they are using more creative methods now. Ameri Moghaddam says they fear more large protests.
It may be unwise
Thousands of protesters have been arrested and four executed in the nationwide protests since August 2022. Human rights organizations Several hundred protesters, many of them teenagers, were killed.
Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi recently confirmed that Iranian women must wear the hijab. He called it a religious necessity.
Putin, Raisi and Erdogan hold hands during a summit in summer 2022.
Photo: Sergey Savostyanov / AFP
At the same time, there seems to be discord among the rulers of Iran. Chief Justice Gholam Hossein Mohseni-Eje says it is not wise to punish all women who do not wear the veil.
Cultural problems must be solved by cultural means. And Mohseni Ejei said last Friday, if we want to solve these problems with arrest and imprisonment, the cost will only increase and it will not be solved in the desired effective way. According to the BBC.