Iran installs cameras in public places to identify, penalize unveiled women

In a further attempt to rein in the increasing number of women defying Iran's compulsory dress code, authorities are installing cameras in public places and thoroughfares to identify and penalize unveiled women, the police announced on Saturday.

After they have been identified, violators will receive “warning text messages as to the consequences”, police said in a statement.

The move is aimed at “preventing resistance against the hijab law,” said the statement, carried by the judiciary’s Mizan news agency and other state media, adding that such resistance tarnishes Iran's spiritual image and spreads insecurity.

A growing number of Iranian women have been ditching their veils since the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman while in custody of the morality police last September. Mahsa Amini had been detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule. Security forces violently put down the protests following her death.

But although risking arrest for defying the obligatory dress code, women are still widely seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media.

Meanwhile, dozens of female students at schools in a central town and the northwestern city of Ardabil were taken ill on Saturday in a new wave of suspected poisonings which affected hundreds of schoolgirls across Iran earlier this year.

"This morning, students smelled an unpleasant odor, had a burning sensation in the throat and felt weak so they were immediately transferred to medical centers by emergency personnel," a security official in Ardabil told reporters, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

A fact-finding committee investigating the suspected poisonings is expected to report to parliament in about two weeks, its head was quoted as saying by the semi-official news agency ILNA.

Authorities have accused the Islamic Republic's "enemies" of using the attacks to undermine the clerical establishment. But suspicions have fallen on hardline groups operating as self-declared guardians of their interpretation of Islam.

Reuters