Chinese Media Downplay Beijing-Tehran Tension Over Persian Gulf Islands

Deputy commander of the police force, Ghasem Rezaei announced that the forces are tasked with "controlling the beaches and recreation areas and maintaining order," particularly focusing on ensuring compliance with the nation’s mandatory hijab.

The police operation will place officers directly along the northern coastlines, with Rezaei warning that any “deviation” from the government-imposed norms will be met with legal consequences.

Every year, with the arrival of summer and the rising temperatures in Iran, the enforcement of hijab by the police intensifies.

Despite the government's strict enforcement of mandatory hijab, a movement of civil disobedience persists. Swathes of women are increasingly visible in public areas without a hijab, actively protesting against the restrictive mandates.

The commander-in-chief of the police force, Ahmadreza Radan, previously announced an electronic surveillance initiative for the northern beaches, signaling a broader crackdown to monitor and control beachgoers.

The intensified enforcement follows widespread protests in 2022 triggered by the death of Mahsa Amini while in the custody of police for not wearing her hijab properly.

The legislators asked Mohammad Reza Tavakoli and Morteza Barati, the judges in charge of both courts against Salehi, to be sanctioned in the US, noting that the UK and Canada had already sanctioned Barati.

“Toomaj Salehi's death sentence is the Islamic Republic's latest act of repression towards the Iranian people and cannot go unanswered,” the letter read.

Salehi was arrested for his support of the protests that erupted across Iran after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in the custody of the morality police in 2022. A UN Fact-Finding Mission has since said that the Iranian state is responsible for the physical violence that led to Amini’s death. The Islamic Republic killed over 500 protesters and arrested thousands during the demonstrations, dubbed as Woman, Life, Freedom.

The singer was sentenced to over six years in prison in July 2023 but was released on a technicality last November. He was quickly rearrested and given a death sentence by a revolutionary court in Isfahan, which sparked a global outcry and demonstrations in Europe and North America amid continued outrage over the use of capital punishment by the Iranian government in political cases.

“The Ayatollah's regime has a decades-long record of torturing and murdering Iranian dissidents, from a series of mass torture and executions of up to 30,000 Iranian political prisoners in 19883 to the murder of about 1,500 in the 2019 'Bloody November' crackdown to the murders of potentially thousands of protesters since September 2022,” the US lawmakers said in their letter.

Last week, a bipartisan group of US lawmakers introduced TOOMAJ Act. The bill aims to impose targeted sanctions on Iranian officials and judges who arrest, jail, and impose death sentences on dissidents.

Targeting Oppressive Officers to Mitigate Abuse in the Judiciary Act would impose sanctions “on the judges, prosecutors and investigators of the Islamic Republic’s Islamic Revolutionary Courts, which are involved in sham trials, torture, and inhumane treatment and sentencing of Iranian protesters and political dissidents.”

“Toomaj Salehi has used his platform to give a voice to the voiceless and bravely speak out against the Iran regime’s torture, abuse, and crackdown against the free will of the Iranian people," Rep. Young Kim (R-CA), one of the bill's lead sponsors, said in a statement to The Associated Press. “Unfortunately, he is just the latest victim of the regime’s cruelty.”

US lawmakers have introduced various bills since the beginning of the Woman Life Freedom in Iran. In April, the US Congress passed the MAHSA Act, which addressed human rights abuses in Iran. Under the Mahsa Amini Human Rights and Security Accountability Act sanctions will be imposed on Iran's supreme leader's office, its appointees, and anyone associated with it. To what extent, however, the Biden administration plans to implement the bill is unclear.

Iran's Judiciary reported the arrest of a "fugitive Mossad agent" in the city of Ardabil, northwestern Iran. The IRGC-affiliated Tasnim News says the detained individual is Shanbehzadeh, the popular social media activist and proofreader arrested on Tuesday.

Shanbehzadeh was arrested in Ardabil on Tuesday. The Ardabil prosecutor's office claimed the individual "had a history of insulting Shia imams and was in contact with high-ranking Mossad officers."

Refuting the accusations as "unjustifiable," his family stated that he has always used his real identity on social media, and that the charges have been levelled against him 24 hours after his arrest, without him having access to a lawyer.

Shanbehzadeh, who posted a dot in response to Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's tweet last month, employing a sarcastic editorial tone, saw his comment receive considerably more likes than Khamenei's original tweet.

In response to his arrest, numerous users voiced their outrage, linking it to a comment he made under an official post by Ali Khamenei last month, which gained significant traction.

Chess grandmaster and Putin critic Garry Kasparov responded to news of Hossein Shanbehzadeh's arrest with a single dot on his X account.

A hashtag with his name in Persian has been tweeted over 57,000 times on X in the past few days.

One user wrote, "What information did Hossein have access to that he could spy on? Did he have missile or nuclear information? Why are you weaving nonsense..."

Human rights activist and former political prisoner Arash Sadeghi defined the crime of "espionage" under Islamic Republic law on X, writing: "The definition of the crime of espionage is that if a person provides classified information to people who are not authorized to access it, the act is espionage." He continued, "How can you accuse an editor, writer, and satirist whose only platform was his Twitter page of espionage?"

Conversely, some cited Shanbehzadeh's criticisms, including an exposé on Evin Prison's harsh practices, suggesting his arrest stems from governmental ire towards his outspokenness.

Shanbehzadeh was previously imprisoned in connection with the 2019 protests, facing charges of "insulting the sanctities and the leader of the Islamic Republic."

His arrest raises concerns about Iran's history of using espionage charges against critics, including the case of Maziar Ebrahimi, a businessman falsely accused of spying for Israel who was later exonerated.

Ebrahimi was tortured to 'confess' that he had been spying for Israel and was involved in the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in 2012. After releasing and allowing him to leave the country, Iran's government said that he was innocent.

Majid Mohammadian, the head of the Hijab and Chastity Secretariat at the Ministry of Health, unveiled the directive on Thursday, requiring it be implemented in both public and private health institutions nationwide.

According to Mohammadian, "several new standard models of clothing have been designed, produced, including surgical gowns, underwear, trousers for colonoscopy, transvaginal ultrasound, breast ultrasound, mammography, special breastfeeding dresses, veils, and other garments."

He said that the new rules are intended to ensure patients' attire is in compliance with Islamic principles during medical procedures and diagnostic examinations.

The announcement comes amid escalating enforcement of hijab regulations under Project Nour, the clerical ruler's campaign to ensure adherence to hijab laws, which has led to increased physical confrontations and crackdowns on Iranian women.

The government's persistent push to enforce the mandatory hijab has reignited widespread condemnation both within Iran and internationally. Human rights organizations, student groups, and activists have vehemently opposed the measures, arguing that they represent infringements on basic freedoms and human rights.

As Iran waits for the official approval of the controversial hijab bill, titled "Protection of Family Through Promotion of Hijab and Chastity Culture", the government has already begun to enforce the new regime. The new regulations threaten women with arrest and impose harsh punishments such as travel bans for non-compliance with hijab mandates.

As per the official statement released on Monday, three Canadian ministers identified Iran as one of four countries - China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea - engaged in extensive campaigns to compromise government and private sector computer systems.

"Foreign interference, enabled by sophisticated cyber tools, poses one of the most serious threats to Canada’s national security, economic prosperity and sovereignty, as well as our way of life," the statement read.

In its annual report released in May, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) highlighted the cyber attacks by the Islamic Republic that target Canada.

“Iran combines offensive cyber operations with cyber-enabled influence operations to assist in the pursuit of its geopolitical goals,” stated the CSIS report. “Canada remains a target for opportunistic credential harvesting, phishing attacks, and exploitation of digital infrastructure to facilitate future targeting opportunities against individuals of interest.”

Microsoft's Threat Analysis Center (MTAC) noted that Iran, Russia, and China will likely attempt to influence elections in the US and other countries in 2024.

In February, Iranian-Canadian MP Ali Ehsassi called for an investigation into Tehran's possible interference in the election.

“Given the catalog of malign and illegal activities committed by the Islamic Republic of Iran on Canadian soil, it would be naïve to believe that the Iranian regime has any compunction to shape public opinion in Canada,” he wrote to the Foreign Interference Commission, requesting testimony and relevant documents from Iranian-Canadians and others with substantial interests in the case.