Iranian authorities are waging a large-scale campaign to enforce repressive compulsory veiling laws through widespread surveillance of women and girls in public spaces and mass police checks targeting women drivers.
Tens of thousands of women have had their cars arbitrarily confiscated as punishment for defying Iran’s veiling laws. Others have been prosecuted and sentenced to flogging or prison terms or faced other penalties such as fines or being forced to attend “morality” classes.
Women said that the process to retrieve their cars from the Moral Security Police involves long queues and degrading treatment from officials including gender-based insults and reprimands about the appearance of women as well as humiliating instructions to cover their hair and threats of flogging, imprisonment and travel bans.
The intensifying persecution of women and girls is taking place just weeks before the UN Human Rights Council is set to vote on extending a Fact-Finding Mission with a mandate to investigate rights violations in Iran since the death in custody of Mahsa Amini, particularly against women.
