DUBAI: Seemingly every afternoon in Iran’s capital, police vans rush to major Tehran squares and intersections to search for women with loose headscarves and those who dare not to wear them at all.
The renewed crackdown comes not quite two years since mass protests over the death Mahsa Amini after she was detained for not wearing a scarf to the authorities’ liking. A United Nations panel has found that the 22-year-old died as a result of “physical violence” wrought upon her by the state.
Amini’s death set off months of unrest that ended in a bloody crackdown, and for a time morality police disappeared from the streets. But now videos are emerging of women being physically forced into vans by police as lawmakers continue to push for harsher penalties. Meanwhile, authorities have seized thousands of cars over women having their hair uncovered while also targeting businesses that serve them.
The renewed hijab push, which police are calling the Noor — or “Light” — Plan, began before President Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash, and whoever wins a vote to replace the hard-line cleric on Friday will have an influence over just how intense it becomes — and how Iran responds to any further unrest.
“An intervention ... under the Noor Plan will take us into darkness,” reformist presidential candidate Masoud Pezeshkian recently told a group of female supporters
Enforcement began ramping up in April, with videos spreading online showing women having violent encounters with female enforcers dressed in the all-encompassing black chador alongside uniformed police officers.
While police haven’t published arrest numbers about the crackdown and media haven’t given it major attention, it’s widely discussed in Iran. But still, many women continue to wear their hijabs loosely or leave them draped around their shoulders while walking in Tehran.
On a recent afternoon in northern Tehran, women sat in cafes and other public places, as a police officer in his 50s told those passing by: “Please cover yourselves, ladies,” and then muttered audibly: “My God, I am fed up repeating this without getting any attention.”
“We know the police are not eager to fight women, but they are under pressure to,” said Fatemeh, a 34-year-old math teacher who gave only her first name for fear of reprisal. “Sooner or later, the authorities will realize that it would serve their interests better to pull back.”
Iran and neighboring Taliban-controlled Afghanistan are the only countries where the hijab remains mandatory. While women attend school, work and can manage their own lives in Iran, hard-liners insist that the hijab must be enforced.
The garment has long has been entwined with politics in Iran. Former ruler Reza Shah Pahlavi banned it in 1936, part of his efforts to mirror the West. The ban lasted only five years, but many middle and upper-class Iranian women chose not to wear it.
After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, some of the women who helped overthrow the shah embraced the even more conservative chador. But others protested a decision by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to order women to wear hijabs in public. In 1983, it became law, enforced with penalties including fines and up to two months in prison.
Amini’s death in September 2022 sparked months of protests and a security crackdown that killed more than 500 people and saw over 22,000 detained. But less than two years later, hard-liners within Iran’s theocracy have pressed forward with a crackdown.
The government’s insistence on enforcing the hijab also reflects its conspiratorial view of the world. Iran’s national police chief, Gen. Ahmad Reza Radan, has alleged without providing evidence that the country’s enemies plan to transform the nation’s culture by encouraging women to avoid the veil.
Already, “tens of thousands of women have had their cars arbitrarily confiscated as punishment for defying Iran’s veiling laws,” Amnesty International said in March. “Others have been prosecuted and sentenced to flogging or prison terms or faced other penalties such as fines or being forced to attend ‘morality’ classes.”
On Saturday, police said they would release some 8,000 vehicles held over women not wearing the hijab in them for the Eid Al-Ghadir holiday marked by Shiites.
There’s also been a push to close down businesses that serve women who aren’t wearing hijabs.
“The Islamic Republic is using the distraction of its presidential ‘election’ to go after its women activists and cow them into silence through imprisonment and abuse,” said Hadi Ghaemi, the executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. The center said at least 12 women activists have been sentenced to prison since Raisi’s deaths for their work.
But there are signs that Iran’s government, and 85-year-old Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, know there are risks to escalating enforcement. A bill passed by Iran’s parliament that could impose 10-year prison sentences for hijab violations has yet to be approved by the country’s Guardian Council, a panel of clerics and jurists ultimately overseen by Khamenei.
So far among the presidential candidates, only Pezeshkian has criticized the hijab law. Others, including current parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, asked for the law to be implemented in a softer way. Candidate Mostafa Pourmohammadi, a Shiite cleric, criticized the use of violence against women, saying police should use “the language of trust and gratitude” rather than the baton.
Meanwhile, the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi, a prominent women’s rights activist, has issued a call from prison urging a boycott of the presidential vote, saying it only supports “a regime that believes in repression, terror and violence.”
At a recent Friday prayers in Tehran, women uniformly wore the chador while attending, as they always do.
“Every women should cover herself in veil, this is an order by Allah,” said Masoumeh Ahmadi, a 49-year-old housewife.
But even among the pious, there can be differences of opinion.
“Yes, it is an order by God, but it is not a must for all women as far as I have learned,” said Ahmadi’s 37-year-old friend, Zahra Kashani.
As Iran’s presidential vote looms, tensions boil over renewed headscarf crackdown
https://arab.news/b6b42
As Iran’s presidential vote looms, tensions boil over renewed headscarf crackdown
- Videos are emerging of women being physically forced into vans by police as lawmakers continue to push for harsher penalties
- Authorities have seized thousands of cars over women having their hair uncovered
Hundreds of Yemen pilgrims stuck in KSA after Houthis seize Yemenia planes
- US, UK planes pound militia targets in Taiz, Hodeidah amid escalating ship attacks
- The Houthi Ministry of Transportation admitted on Thursday that the planes were seized
AL-MUKALLA: At least 1,000 Yemeni pilgrims are stranded in Saudi Arabia after the Houthis seized Yemenia Airways flights that would carry them from the Kingdom to Houthi-held Sanaa, the Yemeni government said on Saturday.
Last week, the Houthis seized three Yemenia aircraft at Sanaa airport and prevented them from returning to Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah airport to carry Yemeni pilgrims home, causing the Yemeni government to accuse the Houthis of “hijacking” the planes and worsening Yemenis’ misery.
The Houthi Ministry of Transportation admitted on Thursday that the planes were seized, and vowed to take control of Yemenia Airways, reschedule flights from Yemeni airports, including those controlled by the Yemeni government, and repair planes at Sanaa Airport, accusing the Yemeni government of plundering the company’s revenues.
The internationally recognized Presidential Leadership Council on Friday formed a government committee chaired by the prime minister to deal with the Houthis’ takeover of Yemenia flights and the militia’s freeze of more than $100 million of the company’s assets in Sanaa banks.
“The council hold the terrorist militia entirely accountable for the consequences of this dangerous escalation, which would exacerbate civilians’ suffering and influence the national carrier’s flights,” the presidential council said, according to official news agency SABA.
In other developments, US and British jets struck Houthi targets in two Yemeni provinces as the militia escalated their drone, missile, and drone boat attacks on ships.
Houthi media reported that US and UK planes carried out four airstrikes on Hodeidah airport in the western province of Hodeida, as well as four more airstrikes on locations in Mawiyah district of the southern province Taiz over the last 24 hours.
The latest round of airstrikes occurred after the Houthis claimed to have targeted ships in the Red Sea and Mediterranean with ballistic missiles, drones, and explosive-laden drone boats.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Sarea said in a televised statement on Friday night that their forces, in collaboration with an allied militia in Iraq, launched a number of drones at an oil tanker named Waler, which was bound for Haifa in Israel and was targeted for violating their ban on ships heading to Israeli ports.
He further claimed that the Houthis launched ballistic missiles at an American ship named Delonix in the Red Sea, and at Johannes Maersk in the Mediterranean, accusing the latter’s parent company, Maersk, of being one of Israel’s “most supportive companies.”
The Houthis also targeted a ship named Ioannis in the Red Sea with drone boats for visiting Israeli ports in the past, he said.
According to www.marinetraffic.com, the Waler is a Panama-flagged oil and chemical tanker sailing from Georgia to Egypt’s East Mediterranean port of Said, the Delonix is a Liberian-flagged chemical tanker sailing from Ukraine to an unknown destination, and the Johannes Maersk is a container ship sailing under the Danish flag and was in the East Mediterranean on Saturday.
US Central Command said on Saturday that its forces had destroyed seven drones and one ground control station vehicle in Houthi-controlled parts of Yemen.
Over the past eight months, the Houthis have sunk two ships and seized one commercial ship in the Red Sea, and directed hundreds of ballistic missiles, drones, and drone boats at ships in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, the Indian Ocean, and, most recently, the Mediterranean in a campaign that the Houthis claim is only targeting Israel-linked ships and those sailing to Israel in order to pressure Israel to end the war in Gaza.
Fighting for third day in north Gaza as thousands displaced
- Israel’s military on Saturday said its operations were continuing in Shujaiya where fighting “above and below the ground” left a “large number” of militants dead
- A resurgence of fighting in the area comes months after Israel had declared the command structure of Hamas militants dismantled in northern Gaza
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Explosions, air strikes and gunfire rattled northern Gaza on Saturday, the third day of an Israeli military operation that has uprooted tens of thousands of Palestinians and compounded what the UN called “unbearable” living conditions in the territory.
An AFP correspondent reported ongoing explosions from the Shujaiya area near Gaza City, with a resident saying bodies were visible on the streets.
Israel’s military on Saturday said its operations were continuing in Shujaiya where fighting “above and below the ground” left a “large number” of militants dead.
A resurgence of fighting in the area comes months after Israel had declared the command structure of Hamas militants dismantled in northern Gaza.
Last Sunday Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the “intense phase” of the war was winding down after almost nine months, but experts see a potentially prolonged next phase.
The Gaza war has also led to soaring tensions on Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, leading Iran on Saturday to warn of an “obliterating” war if Israel attacked Lebanon.
The war started with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel which resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.
The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza although the army says 42 are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 37,834 people, also mostly civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza. It reported at least 69 deaths over the previous 48 hours.
Mohammed Harara, 30, said he and his family, young and old, felt as though they would become part of that toll.
He said they fled from their home in Shujaiya with nothing, “due to the bombardment by Israeli planes, tanks and drones” that they barely survived.
“We couldn’t carry anything from the house. We left the food, flour, canned goods, mattresses, and blankets,” Harara said.
Israel’s military on Friday said it was conducting “targeted raids” backed by air strikes against Hamas militants in the Shujaiya area.
The United Nations humanitarian agency OCHA estimated that “about 60,000 to 80,000 people were displaced” from the area this week.
AFPTV images on Saturday showed men moving belongings on a donkey cart. Some people were pushed in wheelchairs. Children walked with backpacks past piles of dusty debris.
“I saw a tank in front of the Shuhada mosque firing” at targets, said Abdelkareem Al-Mamluk. “There were martyrs in the street.”
On Friday Hamas and the armed wing of the Palestinian militant group Islamic Jihad both said they were fighting in Shujaiya.
Elsewhere in the coastal territory, the civil defense agency on Saturday said four bodies were pulled from an apartment after an Israeli strike in the central region.
Further south, in the Rafah area, witnesses reported dead and wounded after a new incursion by Israeli troops.
Tarek Qandeel, director of the medical center in Al-Maghazi, central Gaza, said the facility was seriously damaged in the bombing of a neighboring house, making it the latest Gaza medical facility affected by the war.
The United Nations, in a report on Friday that cited Gaza’s health ministry, said “about 70 percent of health infrastructure has been destroyed.”
Separately, a UN spokeswoman, Louise Wateridge, said by video-link that she had just returned to central Gaza after four weeks outside the territory.
“It’s really unbearable,” she said, describing a “significantly deteriorated” situation.
“There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food,” and people are returning to live in “empty shells” of buildings.
In the absence of bathrooms they are “relieving themselves anywhere they can,” Wateridge said.
The UN says most of Gaza’s population is displaced, but fallout from the war has also uprooted people on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border, where Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Israeli forces have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire.
Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides.
Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated,” prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.
In a post Saturday on social media, Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York said it “deems as psychological warfare” Israeli threats to “attack” Lebanon.
But it added such a move would lead to an “obliterating” war that could involve “all resistance fronts,” a reference to Iran-backed groups in the region.
Among those are Yemen’s Houthi militants, who have for months been targeting international shipping in the Red Sea area. The Houthis say they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians.
On Friday the Houthis claimed a “direct hit” on a tanker in the Red Sea but a maritime security agency run by Britain’s Royal Navy reported no damage.
The US Navy has retaliated against Houthi targets for such attacks, and on Friday the US military said its forces had destroyed seven drones and a control station vehicle in Houthi-controlled areas of Yemen over the previous day.
Iran warns Israel of ‘obliterating’ war if Lebanon attacked
- Comment comes amid fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement
TEHRAN: Iran on Saturday warned that “all Resistance Fronts,” a grouping of Iran and its regional allies, would confront Israel if it attacks Lebanon.
The comment from Iran’s mission to New York comes with fears of a wider regional war involving Israel and Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement. The two sides have engaged in near-daily exchanges of fire since the war in Gaza began.
Such exchanges have escalated this month, alongside bellicose rhetoric from both sides. Israel’s military said plans for a Lebanon offensive had been “approved and validated,” prompting Hezbollah to respond that none of Israel would be spared in a full-blown conflict.
In a post on social media platform X, the Iranian mission said it “deems as psychological warfare the Zionist regime’s propaganda about intending to attack Lebanon.”
But, it added, “should it embark on full-scale military aggression, an obliterating war will ensue. All options, incl. the full involvement of all Resistance Fronts, are on the table.”
The war in Gaza began in October when Hamas Palestinian militants attacked southern Israel.
Iran, which backs Hamas, has praised the attack as a success but has denied any involvement.
Alongside Hezbollah’s attacks on northern Israel, Iran-backed rebels in Yemen have repeatedly struck commercial ships in the Red Sea area in what they say are acts of solidarity with the Palestinians.
Iran also backs other groups in the region.
The Islamic republic has not recognized Israel since the 1979 revolution that toppled Iran’s United States-backed shah.
Fears of regional war also soared in April, after an air strike that levelled Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killed seven Revolutionary Guards, two of them generals.
Iran hit back with an unprecedented drone and missile attack on Israel on April 13-14.
Iran’s state media later reported explosions in the central province of Isfahan as US media quoted American officials saying Israel had carried out retaliatory strikes on its arch-rival.
Tehran downplayed the reported Israeli raid.
Gazans living in ‘unbearable’ conditions: UNRWA
- Louise Wateridge: ‘Today, it has to be the worst it’s ever been. I don’t doubt that tomorrow again will be the worst it’s ever been’
GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Gazans are forced to live in bombed-out buildings or camp next to giant piles of trash, a United Nations spokeswoman said Friday, denouncing the “unbearable” conditions in the besieged territory.
Louise Wateridge from UNRWA, the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees, described the “extremely dire” living conditions in the Gaza Strip.
“It’s really unbearable,” she told reporters in Geneva, via video-link from central Gaza.
Wateridge, who returned Wednesday after four weeks outside the territory, said that even in that time the situation had “significantly deteriorated.”
“Today, it has to be the worst it’s ever been. I don’t doubt that tomorrow again will be the worst it’s ever been,” she said.
Nearly nine months into the war between Israel and Hamas, Wateridge said the Gaza Strip had been “destroyed.”
She said she had been “shocked” on returning to Khan Yunis in central Gaza.
“The buildings are skeletons, if at all. Everything is rubble,” she said.
“And yet people are living there again.
“There’s no water there, there’s no sanitation, there’s no food. And now, people are living back in these buildings that are empty shells,” with sheets covering the gaps left by blown-out walls.
With no bathrooms, “people are relieving themselves anywhere they can.”
Meanwhile, the health ministry in Gaza said Saturday that at least 37,834 people have been killed during nearly nine months of war between Israel and Palestinian militants.
The toll includes at least 69 deaths over the past 48 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 86,858 people had been wounded in the Gaza Strip since the war began when Hamas militants attacked Israel on October 7.
Five Daesh bombs found hidden in iconic Iraq mosque: UN agency
- Iraq’s army accused Daesh of planting explosives at the site and blowing it up
- UNESCO has been working to restore the site and other architectural heritage in the city
MOSUL: The United Nations said they discovered five bombs in a wall of Mosul’s iconic Al-Nuri mosque, planted years ago by the Daesh group, during restoration work in the northern Iraqi city.
Five “large-scale explosive devices, designed to trigger a massive destruction of the site,” were found in the southern wall of the prayer hall on Tuesday by the UNESCO team working at the site, a representative for the agency told AFP late Friday.
Mosul’s Al-Nuri mosque and the adjacent leaning minaret nicknamed Al-Hadba or the “hunchback,” which dates from the 12th century, were destroyed during the battle to retake the city from Daesh.
Iraq’s army accused Daesh, which occupied the city for three years, of planting explosives at the site and blowing it up.
UNESCO, the UN cultural agency, has been working to restore the site and other architectural heritage in the city, much of it reduced to rubble in the battle to retake the city in 2017.
“The Iraqi armed forces immediately secured the area and the situation is now fully under control,” UNESCO added.
One bomb was removed, but four others “remain connected to each other” and are expected to be cleared in the coming days, it said.
“These explosive devices were hidden inside a wall, which was specially rebuilt around them: it explains why they could not be discovered when the site was cleared by Iraqi forces” in 2020, the agency said.
Iraqi General Tahseen Al-Khafaji, spokesperson for the Joint Operations Command of various Iraqi forces, confirmed the discovery of “several explosive devices from Daesh jihadists in Al-Nuri mosque.”
It was from Al-Nuri mosque that Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi, the then-leader of Daesh, proclaimed the establishment of the group’s “caliphate” in July 2014.
The jihadists took over large swathes of territory in Iraq and neighboring Syria which they ruled with brutality.
Iraqi forces backed by a US-led coalition drove Daesh out of Mosul in 2017.
