Fresh Protests In Tehran Signal Iranians’ Resolve Against Regime
Fresh antiregime rallies took place Wednesday night in the Iranian capital Tehran as people gathered outside the home of one of the protesters killed by the Islamic Republic.
Fresh antiregime rallies took place Wednesday night in the Iranian capital Tehran as people gathered outside the home of one of the protesters killed by the Islamic Republic.
A large crowd of Tehran residents staged a demonstration in the Shahre-Ziba neighborhood, on the birthday anniversary of Hamidreza Rouhi who was killed by the security forces’ live fire on protesters on November 18, 2022. Scenes in the streets were reminiscent of protests last year, invigorating activists.
Following the Wednesday night protests, Hamidreza Rouhi’s father was reportedly arrested on Thursday.
The earlier nationwide protests gradually decreased as the regime killed more than 500 people arrested at least 20,000 others.
Rouhi, a university student who had a modeling career since childhood, was a popular teen with many friends in his neighborhood. He was killed during street protests after he was shot with three bullets.
Rouhi was one those protesters whose death touched a lot of Iranians, with his funeral procession and services for his third, seventh and 40th day after his death also morphed into big protest rallies.
The 40th day after someone’s death carries immense religious and cultural significance in Iran where memorials are held on days three, seven, and forty after death. There is also a historical parallel in the events leading to the 1979 revolution when 40th day memorials invigorated the revolutionaries and their protests.
On Wednesday night, people blocked Shahre-Ziba's main boulevard and set up fires in the middle of the street to stop the deployment of security forces. Soon after videos and news of the protests in the neighborhood surfaced on social media, people in some other parts of the city also held protest rallies, chanting the main slogans of the ‘Women, Life, Liberty’ movements as well as many directly against the regime’s ruler Ali Khamenei.
The rallies were the biggest in the new Iranian year – which started on March 21, indicating that the protest movement has not faded away, despite the propaganda by the authorities who had claimed “the riots” would not reoccur.
In addition to singing songs of the revolution and chanting slogans, women also removed their hijab and moved around bonefires during the Wednesday night gatherings, according to social media videos.
Since 22-year-old Mahsa Amini was beaten to death by hijab enforcers in September 2022, sparking a nationwide revolt, the simple act of unveiling in public has become a common occurrence across Iran, and a thorn in the side of the regime hardliners who are pushing for stricter measures.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s assertion Tuesday that flouting hijab is “religiously and politically haram” has prompted officials to signal harsher crackdown on those who unveil in public.
Following Khamenei’s cue, the ministry of interior in its second statement on hijab within a week, alleged that the opposition to compulsory hijab was an enemy plot advanced by foreign intelligence services and the opposition outside Iran, who through social media are trying to use it to “create deep social divides and a divide between the people and the government.”
The unrest since Amini’s killing by the police has made it increasingly difficult to enforce the mandatory Islamic dress code which has become a symbol of opposition against clerical rule.
At a meeting with state officials Tuesday, Khamenei claimed that foreign intelligence services were encouraging Iranian women to disobey mandatory hijab. He also claimed that “the enemy” is working according to “a plan and plot” and urged authorities to have their own plan for dealing with the issue of hijablessness.
“Discarding hijab is haram based on Sharia and also politically,” he declared. His declaration was a clear signal to authorities that they need to do anything it takes to re-establish control over women which had somehow waned following anti-regime protests.
“The order given by his excellency is clear,” Parliament Speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said Wednesday while promising to give precedence to any hijab-related motion or bill.
Following Khamenei’s cue, the ministry of interior in its second statement on hijab within a week, alleged that the opposition to compulsory hijab was an enemy plot advanced by foreign intelligence services and the opposition outside Iran, who through social media are trying to use it to “create deep social divides and a divide between the people and the government.”
Airport staff refusing to offer services to ‘hijabless’ women in Shiraz
Claiming that the ministry is responsible for ascertaining and defending “rights of the majority of the people,” the statement said it will fully support the activities of vigilantes who have been harassing women to follow the Islamic dress code.
The ministry also said the judiciary and other organizations involved in the enforcement of compulsory hijab will take action “against the few who act against the society’s norms” to defend the “dignity and identity of the Muslim Iranian women.”
Mahsa Amini’s death in ‘hijab police’ custody in September sparked the protests That engulfed the country nearly non-stop for four months. Many women burned their headscarves during the protests, vowing never to surrender to compulsory hijab again.
‘Hijabless’ women are now seen everywhere, even in some of the most conservative cities. For many, this is a form of civil disobedience. Some social media users have said that in some public venues such as restaurants, ‘hijabless’ women outnumber those who wear headscarves.
On Wednesday, an official of Tehran’s Metro Organization, Masoud Dorosti, said his organization has set up a “chastity and hijab taskforce” for enforcement on public transport. According to Dorosti, the first phase of the plan, giving verbal warnings to women who do not abide by the hijab requirement, has begun at metro stations. Tehran municipality has adopted similar plans.
The police and the judiciary have also resorted to pressuring businesses to enforce the hijab on their premises.
Authorities have shut down hundreds of shops, restaurants, cafes, and ecotourism facilities during the two-week New Year (Nowrouz) holidays across the country.
Earlier this week, the ministry of higher education said institutions under its coverage will no longer offer educational and other services to students who do not abide by hijab rules.
The Islamic Azad University, which is not administered by the ministry, has also announced strict measures against defiance of the compulsory hijab. The university which has over 1.1 million students across Iran has ordered its faculty to “seriously manage” abidance of the hijab rules by their students and threatened them with repercussions if students flout hijab in their classes.
“Conflict between professors and students? We are teachers not police or sheriffs. It is knowledge that will eventually be harmed by destroying teachers’ relationship [with students],” a professor of criminal law at Tehran university, who was recently sacked for criticizing the regime after the execution of four young protesters, said in a tweet Tuesday.
Throwing his weight behind the hardliners who have been pushing for new measures to enforce the mandatory Islamic dress code, Khamenei said that “hijab is a restriction based on Sharia (Islamic law) and the constitution.”
The Supreme Leader also claimed that “removing hijab is religiously and politically haram,” using the Arabic term which means ‘forbidden.’ His view about hijab is based on the Islamic Republic’s interpretation of Sharia, as the observance of hijab is a source of disagreement among Muslim scholars.
On Monday and Tuesday, at least five girls’ schools were targeted across the country with some sort of chemical attack, that in some cases sends students to hospital.
The uprising that was sparked by the death in police custody of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini has made it increasingly difficult to enforce the mandatory Islamic dress code. Appearing in public without a full veil has become a common sight even in some small and more conservative towns.
Khamenei repeated his conspiratorial ideas about “the intelligence agencies of the enemies” orchestrating the movement against hijab in Iran.
“Enemies” in the jargon used by the Islamic Republic refers to Israel and the United States, but the fluid concept can also include other countries whenever a state makes a statement about Iran’s human rights violations, destabilizing acts in the region, or any type of criticism against Tehran.
“If those who unveil in public knew who are behind this scheme, they would not remove their hijab,” Khamenei said, admitting that there are many people from religious families who no longer observe hijab rules.
Since the beginning of the ‘Women, Life, Liberty’ movement in September last year, many girls and women have set fire to their headscarves in a symbolic move and voiced opposition to compulsory hijab. Social media is replete with photos and videos of such acts of disobedience, especially during Nowruz holidays, when women boldly ignored the regime’s rules and appeared without veil on the streets, shopping centers, natural landmarks, and recreational sites.
Frustrated over its inability to deter these women, the three branches of the government have joined forces to find new ways to enforce hijab. They have also announced several measures to confront those who unveil, as well as repeatedly threatening to persecute citizens who support such acts of disobedience,expulsion of students, and deprivation from social services. It was announced in March that women could be fined as much as $60,000 for flouting hijab when a new law to enforce the Islamic dress code is passed by parliament.
Such threats have incited numerous clashes as the government and many clerics urged organizations as well as ordinary citizens to confront women who unveil in public, emboldening hardliners to attack because they know the authorities will back them if an incident ends up in courts.
Hundreds of schools were targeted by poisonous gas attacks from November to March, affecting more than 1,500 students and hospitalizing dozens.
With women and girls having been at the forefront of the protests, it is believed that the attacks are a coordinated effort by pro-regime elements to intimidate and deter them. Activists have asked the international community for help to force the government to stop these incidents.
The HRC voted to accept the Report on the human rights situation Iran from its Special Rapporteur Javaid Rehman and extended Rehman’s reporting mandate by another twelve months.
Rehman was pleased with the result of Tuesday’s vote in the Council. Talking to Iran International after the vote, Rehman said he welcomed the strong vote accepting his Report’s findings and recommendations and extending his mandate.
Rehman said that the vote, stronger this year than in some previous years, showed that the Council recognized that what he called the “alarming and concerning” human rights situation in Iran had become much worse since the death of Mahsa Gina Amini than in the previous reporting period.
The Islamic Republic has been criticized by the UN rights body and international organizations defending human rights for decades. In the latest round of protests, security forces killed more than 500 civilians and arrested at least 20,000 based on estimates presented in detail by monitoring groups.
The Resolution’s summarized Rehman’s original report and its recommendations. These deplored the “widespread, repeated and persistent” violation of human rights in the Islamic Republic and called on Iran to end its “systematic impunity” and hold human rights violators accountable in line with international law.
The Resolution also called for Iran to stop discrimination and violence based on gender and ethnicity and belief. The Resolution expressed its “deep concerns” at the surge of executions and called on Iran to honor its own agreed legal obligations under international law and to halt all executions for offences “that do not meet the threshold of the most serious crimes or for alleged offences committed before the age of 18 years.”
Twenty-three countries, mostly in Europe, voted in favor of the Resolution; eight against, among which were China, Pakistan and Cuba. China justified its No vote on the grounds that it was always opposed to any interference in the internal affairs of states. Pakistan said the Resolution was politically driven and human rights investigations were “best done with the consent of their country concerned”.
This last point would make the Special Rapporteurs job redundant, since Iran has refused both to recognize or acknowledge the mandate given by the UN to the HRC’s Special Rapporteur. Eritrea, Kazakhstan , Vietnam, Bolivia and Bangladesh made up the refuseniks.
India and Qatar were among the 16 abstaining voters, which could both sit on their hands and yet let the Resolution pass. The abstainers included a bloc of sub-Saharan African states. Of these, South Africa said it recognized the part played by women in its own struggles for freedom and encouraged Iran to enhance its cooperation with the UN High Commission for Human Rights. But despite its concerns with what it called the ‘geo-politics’ of the Resolution, South Africa nevertheless did nothing to block the Resolution. Nor did India, which last time voted against the Special Rapporteur’s mandate being extended.
The Resolution, as with previous such resolutions, again “regretted” the refusal of Iran to allow Rehman into the country and called on Iran to cooperate with the Special Rapporteur and provide all information necessary “to allow the fulfilment of his mandate” … This last is what the UN calls its “standing invitation” to Iran to cooperate.
Iran’s UN ambassador Ali Bahreini was having none of it. Speaking in English shortly before today’s vote, Bahreini called the Resolution a “malign attempt” to “name and shame” the Islamic Republic. Bahreini said that the “weaponization of human rights as a foreign policy tool” was unacceptable and “endangers the common cause on human rights”.
The purpose of the Resolution, Bahreini claimed, was to “divert attentions from the violations of the rights of Iranians and crimes against humanity committed by the sponsors of this resolution through imposing nationwide unilateral coercive measures against Iran.”
This referred to sanctions imposed on Iran, a point raised in Rehman’s report which recognized the effects of sanctions on Iran’s health sector and called for exemptions in some areas. But, as Rehman argued in the Council, sanctions “should not be used to excuse violations of human rights”.
Iran has claimed that US economic sanction impede healthcare for its citizens, but in fact medicine is exempt and Iran has been importing annually around $3 billion dollars of medications and claims it is an exporter.
The Resolution voted through the funds for the Special Rapporteur’s mandate for a further year: at just under $500,000 for a twelve-month period covering all expenses, the post is not extravagant. Rehman now has to prepare a new Report by end of summer to be presented at the forthcoming UNGA in October.
The Resolution also calls for Rehman to work with the international independent fact-finding mission (FFM) on Iran, which itself is likely to prove another unwelcome pressure point on Tehran as it prepares its own report on alleged human rights violations there since the death of Gina Mahsa Amini on September 16, 2022. The FFM is due to present an oral update on its work to the Human Rights Council in June this year ahead of its comprehensive report to the HRC in March 2024.