Geneva: UN experts accused Iran Friday of “intensifying” its repression of women two years after Mahsa Amini’s death in custody, which sparked nationwide protests, including an apparent pattern of sentencing women activists to death.
Amini, 22, was an Iranian Kurdish woman who died three days after her arrest in Tehran in September 2022 for allegedly breaching Iran’s dress code which requires women to wear a headscarf.
Two years on, “Iran has intensified its efforts to suppress the fundamental rights of women and girls and crush remaining initiatives of women’s activism,” the independent UN fact-finding mission on Iran warned in a statement.
The UN Human Rights Council appointed the experts to investigate the deadly crackdown on nationwide protests that rocked Iran after Amini’s death.
“Although mass protests have subsided, the unabated defiance of women and girls is a continuous reminder that they still live in a system that relegates them to ‘second class citizens’,” said the experts, who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations.
In a fresh update, they said repression had stepped up noticeably since April.
State authorities had “increased repressive measures and policies” through the so-called “Noor Plan,” which encourages sanctioning rights violations against women and girls who flout the mandatory hijab, they said.
“Security forces have further escalated pre-existing patterns of physical violence, including beating, kicking, and slapping women and girls who are perceived as failing to comply with the mandatory hijab laws and regulations,” the team said in a statement.
They also warned that state authorities had enhanced surveillance for hijab compliance, including in private spheres like vehicles, and with a range of tools, including drones.
At the same time, a new “Hijab and Chastity” bill, which is in the final stages of approval, provides for harsher penalties for women who do not wear the mandatory hijab — including soaring fines, long prison sentences and travel bans.
In their statement, the experts expressed particular concern about “an apparent new pattern of sentencing to death of women activists... following their convictions for national security offenses.”
“Over the last two years, the death penalty and other domestic criminal law provisions, in particular those related to national security, have been used as instruments to terrorize and deter Iranians from protesting and expressing themselves freely,” they said.

BEIRUT: Hamas chief Yehya Sinwar thanked the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah for his group’s support in the conflict with Israel, Hezbollah said on Friday, in the first reported message since Sinwar became Hamas leader in August.
The Iran-backed Hezbollah has been waging attacks on Israel for nearly a year in a conflict across the Lebanese-Israeli border that has been taking place in parallel to the Gaza war. Hezbollah says its attacks aim to support the Palestinians.
“Your blessed actions have expressed your solidarity on the fronts of the Axis of Resistance, supporting and engaging in the battle,” Sinwar told Nasrallah, according to Hezbollah’s Al-Manar broadcaster.
Sinwar has not appeared in public since the Oct. 7 attacks, and is widely thought to be running the war from tunnels beneath Gaza. It was the second time this week he is reported to have sent a letter. Hamas said on Tuesday he had sent one congratulating Algerian President Abdulmadjid Tebboune on his reelection.
Hezbollah is the most powerful faction in an alliance of Iran-backed groups known as the Axis of Resistance, which have also entered the fray with attacks from Yemen and Iraq in support of Hamas during the Gaza war.
In the early days of the conflict, former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal hinted at frustration over the scale of Hezbollah’s intervention, thanking the group but saying “the battle requires more.”
Over the last year, Israel has killed around 500 Hezbollah fighters, including its top military commander Fuad Shukr. The toll is greater than Hezbollah’s losses in its 2006 war with Israel. Hezbollah has said it had no advance knowledge of the Oct. 7 attack, which Sinwar helped plan.
Sinwar also thanked Nasrallah for a letter he sent expressing condolences for the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the former Hamas leader killed in Tehran in July in an assassination widely believed to have been carried out by Israel.
The hostilities across the Lebanese-Israeli border have forced tens of thousands of people to leave both sides of the frontier. The risk of escalation has loomed large.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said on Tuesday that Israeli forces are near to fulfilling their mission in Gaza and their focus will turn to the Lebanon border.
Israeli leaders have said they would prefer to resolve the conflict through an agreement that would push Hezbollah away from the border. Hezbollah has said that it will continue fighting as long as the Gaza war continues.