The Iranian government is planning to use facial recognition technologies on public transport to identify women who are not wearing the hijab, the head and neck veil that has been mandatory in public since the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
“Technology now allows us to match images (captured by cameras, ndr) to photos on national identity cards, I allow to identify women without hijab “, he announced Mohammad-Saleh Hashemi-GolpayeganiSecretary of the Iranian Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, in an interview shared on social media on August 29 and picked up by the UAE broadcaster’s website Al Arabiya.
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In this way the authorities will be able to take targeted measures against those who do not respect the strict dress code of the country, became increasingly tight with the new decree signed by the president Ibrahim Raisi on August 15. The provision to enforce the hijab and chastity law led to a new list of restrictions on how women and girls can dress. According to the ordinance, for example, those who publish photos on the internet without hijabs risk being deprived of certain rights for a period of between six months and a year. While government employees are fired if their profile picture on social networks does not comply with Islamic laws.
The new decree had attracted criticism on social media and many women, in protest, had decided not to wear the veil in public in various Iranian cities, filming and sharing videos on their social profiles. Many of the activists who chose to protest were arrested and forced into forced confessions on public television. Sunday, Ali Khanmohammadispokesperson for the Organization for the Promotion of Virtue and the Rejection of Vice, told the Iranian news agency Fars that the authorities have arrested more than 300 people accused of campaigning against the obligation of the veil in the country. “All these people have been arrested,” she added without giving further details on the date and place of the arrests.
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In recent months, under the presidency of the ultra-conservative Raisi, police interventions have increased to enforce the law. At the beginning of July, the authorities banned women who do not wear the veil from entering the subway in the holy city of Mashhad, in the north-east, causing controversy in the country. At the end of June, in Shiraz, in the south, police arrested several girls who had taken off their headscarves during a skateboarding event, as well as the organizers.