On the eve of International Women's Day, Amnesty International (AI) denounced this Wednesday that the Government of Iran is carrying out a massive campaign to force women to wear the veil, which consists of confiscating their cars.
In a statement, the NGO assures that “the vehicles of tens of thousands of women have been arbitrarily confiscated as punishment for violating the legislation on the use of the headscarf in Iran” and also adds that “others (women) have been prosecuted and sentenced to receiving whippings or imprisonment, or other types of penalties, such as fines or forced attendance at 'morality' classes.”
AI's complaint is based on the testimonies of 46 people collected during the month of February, corresponding to 41 women - one of them, transsexual -, one girl and four men. Research on punishments for not wearing a hijab is also based on consulting judicial documents, such as sentences or prosecution orders.
The organization states that “a large number of state agencies are involved in the persecution of women and girls solely for the exercise of their rights to bodily autonomy and freedom of expression and belief.”
This is “a sinister attempt to wear down resistance to the mandatory use of the veil after the uprising,” says Diana Eltahawy deputy director of Amnesty International for the Middle East and North Africa, referring to the wave of protests harshly repressed by the theocratic regime. that followed the death of the young Mahsa Amini in a police station in Tehran, on September 16, 2022, after being detained by the moral police for not wearing the hijab correctly.
”Iranian authorities are terrorizing women and girls by continually subjecting them to police surveillance and control, disrupting their daily lives and causing them enormous distress. Their draconian tactics range from stopping female drivers on the road and massively confiscating their vehicles, to imposing inhuman punishments such as flogging or prison sentences,” adds Eltahawy.
According to AI, since April 2023, the morality police have ordered the arbitrary confiscation of hundreds of thousands of cars driven by women or with female passengers, even as young as nine, who were not wearing the veil or wore it in an “inappropriate” way. . These orders are based, according to testimonies collected by the NGO, on photographs taken by surveillance cameras or on reports from plainclothes officers who patrol the streets and use a police application to report license plates of vehicles with female offenders on board.
Amnesty International claims that it examined screenshots of 60 text messages sent to 22 women and men in 2023, which show the way the authorities act. The women targeted—and their families—receive threatening phone calls and text messages with instructions to report to the morality police to hand over their vehicle for failing to wear the hijab.
In recent months, Iranian authorities have carried out massive random vehicle check campaigns to intercept female drivers on busy roads. The agents enter their license plates into the system to check if they are marked for confiscation; If so, they order them to go to the police station to hand over their car and, if anyone refuses, they take it away with a tow truck.
The organization claims to have spoken with eleven women who explained intimidating episodes of being chased at the wheel, intercepted and seized by their vehicle on school trips, to work, when they were going to medical appointments or to carry out other daily activities. Always according to AI, these women stressed the police's absolute disregard for their safety, and some explained that they had been abandoned on busy highways or in cities far from their hometown.
In many cases, the authorities delay the delivery of the car for fifteen days or a month after the seizure, and always after payment of the corresponding fines and once the woman or girl—or a male relative on their behalf—is has committed in writing to abide by the mandatory use of the veil.
In other cases, the moral police refer the woman or girl to the judicial authorities, noting that she has been repeatedly reported for not wearing the hijab inside the vehicle, making the return of the car dependent on the courts.
