Jailed Rights Activist Slams Khamenei’s Prisoner Amnesty As A 'Deceptive Show'

“Thousands of pro-democracy activists' Twitter accounts have been suspended en masse, indicating #cyberterrorism by an adversarial state and its proxies. We are investigating it. Would you care to join us in this effort, @elonmusk?” activist Shima Kalbasi tweeted Monday.

Kalbasi said it appears that the Twitter rules are being manipulated to benefit the Iranian regime and other actors. “I am reporting this issue to the FBI for further investigation,” she said in another tweet.

Sometimes Twitter asks the author to remove a tweet and serve a period of time in read-only mode before they can tweet again. In more serious cases, Twitter suspends the accounts of those “whose sole purpose is to violate” the platform’s policies. Such decisions can be appealed. Twitter also suspends accounts when other users mark its tweets as abusive.

@Sashtyani, one of the popular pro-monarchy accounts with over 62k followers, however, dismissed such “conspiracy theories” and said Twitter’s algorithms are responsible for the mass suspension of these like-minded accounts. It is possible that the suspended accounts followed too many of the fake accounts created by the Islamic Republic’s cyber-army, @Sashtyani argued.

This post claims Twitter has shown dual standards when it comes to the use of the same hashtag with the phrase “Death to” by two different users.

The Iranian regime has what it calls a “cyber army” with thousands of bots and agents who try to spread disinformation or report the accounts of dissidents. Both Twitter and Facebook have closed thousands of such accounts in the past once they concluded that they were government-driven actors.

Apparently, many of the tweets found abusive by Twitter contained the Persian word marg (death) in phrases such as “Death to …” against the Islamic Republic or various political groups.

“Twitter is now suspending accounts that say ‘Down with the 1979 riot’. Not sure why Elon Musk's Twitter is suspending the accounts that wish the fall (death) of that ‘riot’ and the radical Islamist regime it created. What is wrong with that wish?”, Saeed Ghasseminejad, a senior advisor at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) tweeted Sunday. He included an image of a message from Twitter to an account required to remove a tweet that read “Death to the 1979 riot”.

Another tweet addressed to Musk with the hashtag #FreedomOfSpeech asked if he has any thoughts on suspension of accounts that “express a desire for the downfall of the radical Islamist regime and the '79 riot in Iran?” 

Some Twitterati say tweets appearing to be abusive or threatening are probably being removed by artificial intelligence rather than persons who examine the content.

Tweeter sends a message to account holders when one or more of their tweets are marked as containing violent speech or threats.

Twitter prohibits “unwanted sexual conduct and graphic objectification that sexually objectifies an individual without their consent” as well as the “use of insults or profanity to target others”, “behavior that encourages others to harass or target specific individuals or groups with abusive behavior.”

Twitter also says tweets by an account that have been found in violation of Twitter safety policies will be downranked in replies, made ineligible for amplification in top search results and/or on timelines for users who don’t follow the Tweet author.

Speaking to the press in his constituency in Yazd Province, Hojjat ol-Eslam Hossein Jalali said Sunday that punishments for flouting the hijab, according to the planned legislation, will include cash fines from 5m to 30b rials (around $100 to $60,000) and that other penalties may include revocation of drivers’ licenses and passports, or a ban on the use of the internet for celebrities and social media influencers and bloggers.

These penalties will apply to passengers who do not abide by the hijab rules while riding in vehicles, at restaurants, government organizations, schools and universities, airports and public transport terminals, in the cyberspace and to celebrities, and on the streets and other public arenas, Jalali added.

Hardliners have been looking for ways to strengthen the enforcement of hijab after their ‘morality police’ tactic of arresting women for “improper hijab” backfired with the death of Mahsa Amini last September, triggering nationwide popular protests.

Detainees were usually released after paying rather smaller cash fines but could also face prison and lashes if they had a previous record. Activism against the compulsory hijab could also bear serious consequences including prosecution and imprisonment.

The morality police has largely disappeared from the streets since Amini’s death in September and the resulting protests as authorities feared enraging people.

Four decades after the Islamic Republic forced women to wear headscarves, long tunics and trousers, or the long black veil called chador, women are increasingly appearing in public, even in many smaller and more traditional areas of the country, in regular clothing such as colorful dresses and with no headscarf covering their hair.

Young girl skating and dancing ‘hijabless’ at a park in western Tehran recently.

Many women say on social media that there is no way they will go back to dressing according to the government mandated dress code.

The plan, Jalali said, was finalized after “300 meetings with the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution and the National Security Council”. In December, amid nationwide protests, Jalali had said that thirty-seven different government organizations that were responsible for implementation of the existing hijab law had all received the relevant instructions to enforce it.

The government should submit the plan to the parliament in the form of a bill within the next couple of weeks, Jalali said of the envisaged plan which has been “brought to the attention of” the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the Judiciary, implying their agreement with the new plan had been obtained.

Vida Movahed protesting against compulsory hijab in December 2017 at a busy streets in Tehran.

The new law, if passed, would exclude any “physical encounter” with women, Jalali said. He was apparently referring to plans to use CCTV cameras and facial recognition technology to identify women who flout the hijab, and use cash fines and social restrictions to punish them, instead of using the infamous morality police patrols on the street to issue warnings or make arrests.

The plans to eliminate physical confrontation were first revealed by the secretary of the Headquarters for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, Mohammad-Saleh Hashemi-Golpayegani.

He said at the time that CCTV footage from public places such as streets and public transport and facial recognition software would be used to enforce the hijab.

Brothers Reza and Abdulrauf Rakhshani, prominent teachers at a Sunni religious school in Zahedan, went missing after what is believed to have been a regime backed forced disappearance.

According to reports from local publication Halvash, the two brothers were arrested by the security forces in Zahedan on February 15 and despite the follow-up of their family, the judicial and security authorities have not yet commented on their condition.

The report claims that the arrest of the two brothers is aimed at "putting more pressure on Mowlavi Abdolhamid, the Sunni Imam of Makki Mosque of Zahedan”.

Civil activists in Sistan and Baluchistan, home to a Baluch majority, have previously reported that during the protests of the last six months a large number of citizens, including children under the age of 18, have been arrested with no charge against them.

There is no accurate information about the situation of many of them due to the disruption of the internet in many areas of the southeastern province.

At least 69 Afghan students who were studying at a religious school in Zahedan, were arrested by the security forces and transferred to a camp on February 13 after having been forced to confess to participating in Zahedan’s weekly protests.

The Sunni city of Zahedan in the southeastern Sistan-Baluchestan province has been witnessing protests against repressions and discriminations in the province following mass Friday prayers during the past 25 weeks.

The Sunni Baluch population have taken to the streets in Zahedan every Friday after prayers since September 30 when government forces cracked down on protesters and killed tens of protesters, known as Bloody Friday. Protests began after the death of Mahsa Amini in ‘hijab police’ custody in mid-September.

The issue remains a key flashpoint between the revolutionary tide and the regime’s leading clerics.

Mohsen Araki, a member of the Assembly of Experts said on Sunday that the Islamic Republic "will not allow improper hijab to spread in the Islamic society”, calling it a “new Covid” which ruins the society.

He said that in spite of a mass movement fighting against the mandatory Islamic head covering, “the prevalence of removing hijab means corruption”.

Resorting to the regime’s predictable rhetoric of foreign conspiracy theories, he, like all the Iranian spokespeople across government and theocrats, said it was foreign influence which had led to the current problems.

”The goal of the enemies is to destroy the independence of Iranian women, because a woman without hijab will not be independent and free and will be a person who is bound by others’ lust,” he said.

Meanwhile, Mohammad Reza Shahrokhi, the representative of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei in Lorestan province reiterated the hijab law, inciting yet more violence as he urged the “revolutionary youths and clerics” to deal with the "norm breakers”.

Earlier, Hossein Jalali, one of the most radical parliamentarians in Iran, presented the details of a new plan for mandatory hijab, including fines of up to three billion tomans (nearly $60,000), saying that Ali Khamenei had approved the plan.

A police official in Khuzestan Province said Saturday that fifty-five businesses, were shut down in Ahvaz, the capital of the province, for breaking the rules of fasting.

Colonel Mohammad-Hossein Mohammadvand said 229 businesses were inspected, 55 were shut down and 14 others received warnings that they will be shut down if they do not abide by the rules. Inspection will continue until the end of Ramadhan, he said. Similar inspections are carried out in other cities across the country.

During the fasting month which started March 23, restaurants, cafes and coffee shops, tea houses, ice-cream and juice bars have to remain closed until fasting ends around sunset. In the capital Tehran, this falls at around 18:35 at this time of year.

The rules apply to and are enforced in all public places including gyms, schools, universities and factories where cafeterias are closed throughout the month. Even eating inside cars is not allowed.

The fasting month of Ramadan in the Islamic lunar calendar has coincided with Nowrouz (Nowruz) and its holidays. Authorities have been urging people to report if they witness anyone violates fasting in public or hijab rules, by sending text messages to designated numbers or online.

A government-sponsored billboard in the city of Shiraz urges visitors to the city to report hijab, fasting disrespect to the authorities.

Those taking trips during Ramadan are not required to fast if they travel farther than 45km from home and intend to return at least ten days later, according to Sharia. Restaurants situated inside hotels, on transit roads or airports and train stations can apply for special permits to cater to the needs of travelers but they must completely cover their windows so that patrons eating inside cannot be seen from the outside.

“Serving kebabs and other grilled food is prohibited before iftar,” regulations announced by Tehran police Wednesday said while stressing that the number of permits issued in any given neighborhood or city should be low enough not to blur “the difference between this month and ordinary months”.

The religious establishment and its supporters say people should not eat in public during the fasting month “out of respect for those who fast” but many among the non-fasting citizens believe this is unfair.

“You are fasting, Okay, but why should I not be able to eat?” a tweeter protested. “The [real] reason for keeping restaurants closed is not to allow the huge number of those who don’t fast to be revealed.”

Another tweet protested that food businesses must suffer so that the faith of the religious is not threatened with temptation to eat. “You morons, you are fasting so that you feel and understand what it means [not to be able to eat] to the poor!”

Shiite clerics have even coined a term for the acts of eating, drinking, or smoking in public during the fasting hours, which could very loosely be translated into “showing off in public that one is not fasting”. This ‘crime’ is punishable by ten to sixty days of prison or up to 74 lashes according to article 638 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code.

There are similar rules and cash fines and prison terms for eating in public during Ramadan in most Islamic countries including Qatar, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.