Struggling To Retain Control, Regime Escalates Attacks On Iranians Opposed To Compulsory Hijab Laws

(New York, N.Y.) — With Iranian regime officials unable to stop the Women, Life, Freedom movement, Tehran is escalating its War on Women by shutting down businesses, refusing to enforce compulsory hijab laws, installing advanced surveillance technologies, and attacking more schoolgirls in poison gas attacks. The Iranian regime has used compulsory hijab requirements, mandated since 1979, to control and oppress women and girls. Iran’s officials also limit access to education and financial independence to keep women in the lower echelons of society.

Since late March, Iranian police have deepened the country’s economic crisis by closing approximately 2,000 businesses – eliminating thousands more jobs – for women’s refusal to wear the compulsory hijab. Iranian officials also closed Tehran’s Opal Mall, a major shopping center home to more than 450 businesses, for five days in late April. More than 2,500 employees suffered economically as a direct result of the shutdown.

Iran implemented the “chastity and hijab plan,” a domestic surveillance program, on April 15. The program utilizes street camera footage, amongst other advanced monitoring technology, to identify and target those violating hijab laws. In recent months, Iran has frequently turned to China and Chinese companies like Tiandy Technologies, which NBC reports sells surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, and “smart” interrogation tables. Tehran’s metro has also announced a security unit to prevent women who refuse to wear the hijab from using the capital city’s rail transportation.

Further panic has ensued for Iranian schoolgirls and their families in light of poison gas attacks that have struck some 13,000 students at more than 100 schools since November 2022. Teachers and students reported smelling something like sewage or rotten fruit before feeling symptoms of dizziness, coughing, shortness of breath, vomiting, and numbness. 

These actions are backfiring on Tehran as daily anti-government protests continue, the resolve of protesters strengthens, and condemnations from the U.S. and the United Nations increase attention on the regime’s human rights violations.  

To read UANI’s resource Iran’s War On Women, please click here. 

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