Cameras Installed In Iran To Punish Women Walking In Public Without Headscarf

Reflecting back Mahsa Amini was detained by Tehran’s notorious morality police for apparently not wearing her headscarf properly. Her death in September has sparked months of anti-regime protests with women refusing to wear the hijab in solidarity. 

The cameras will be installed in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalise unveiled women, the police announced on Saturday. 

Moving forward cameras are being installed in Iran to catch and punish women walking in public without a headscarf, as the regime in Tehran cracks down on those defying strict dress codes. 

The authorities want to rein in an increasing number of women who are defying the rule on mandatory head coverings after the death of a young woman in police custody last year ignited a nationwide anti-government protest movement. 

After they have been identified, violators will receive “warning text messages as to the consequences”, police said, adding that the move is aimed at “preventing resistance against the hijab law.”

The law for women and girls over the age of nine to wear a headscarf in public became compulsory two years after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. 

Under the former president, Hassan Rouhani, rules around their wearing were relaxed. But since the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisim came to power in 2021, the country’s formidable morality police have taken a harder line against women who flout the rules, demanding a “complete hijab”. 

Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police since Amini’s death have flooded social media. Women have been increasingly seen walking around unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. 

Describing the veil as "one of the civilisational foundations of the Iranian nation" and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic,” an Interior Ministry statement said on March 30 that there would be no retreat on the issue.