UN: Wave of arrests in Iran during headscarf checks
Published: Friday, Apr 26th 2024, 12:40
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According to information from the UN Human Rights Office, numerous girls and women have been arrested in Iran as a result of stricter headscarf controls.
Hundreds of companies have been closed because they have not implemented strict headscarf controls, the office announced in Geneva on Friday. The notorious morality watchdogs announced stricter controls a few weeks ago. Since the protests in the fall of 2022, more and more women have ignored the headscarf requirement.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Türk, criticized a planned law that provides for prison sentences of ten years and flogging as punishment for violations of headscarf regulations. He appealed to the government in Tehran to eliminate all forms of gender-based discrimination and violence.
Türk also criticized the death sentence against rapper Tumaj Salehi. The 33-year-old was one of the prominent critics during the mass demonstrations against the Islamic Republic's system in the fall of 2022. In his songs, he denounced social and political grievances in the country.
According to the UN Human Rights Office, nine men have already been executed in connection with the protests. They began after the death of Iranian Kurdish woman Jina Mahsa Amini in September 2022. Amini had been arrested by the morality watchdogs for allegedly wearing an ill-fitting headscarf and died in police custody.
©Keystone/SDA
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