Iranian law requires women and girls to follow a dress code when they go out.
Jeremy Laurence, a spokesman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, said today in Geneva that Iran is enforcing the hijab law nationwide, violently repressurizing women and girls who do not cover their hair as required, as well as men who support them, with many of the women and girls arrested and harassed between the ages of 15 and 17.
Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) announced on April 21 the creation of a new body to enforce the current mandatory hijab law, Lawrence said, adding that IRGC members had been trained to enforce the law "in a stricter manner" in public places. OHCHR has received reports of hundreds of businesses being forcibly shut down for failing to enforce mandatory hijab laws, and surveillance cameras have been used to identify female drivers who do not comply with the law.
Elimination of gender-based discrimination
OHCHR is deeply concerned about the bill on the promotion of chastity and hijab culture in support of the family, which is nearing final approval by the Iranian parliament, and once again urges Iran to shelve the bill, which provides for more severe penalties.
Lawrence said that while the latest draft of the bill has not yet been released, previous versions provided that violators of the mandatory dress code could face up to 10 years in prison, as well as caning and fines. He stresses that corporal punishment is a cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international law and that any detention in the exercise of fundamental freedoms constitutes arbitrary detention.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called on the Iranian government to eliminate all gender-based discrimination and violence, including by amending and repealing harmful laws, policies and practices in line with international human rights norms and standards.
Call for a moratorium on the death penalty
Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi was initially convicted of speaking out during the 2022 Amini protest wave and was again jailed on November 30, 2023, on charges of "propaganda against the state." This week, OHCHR received reports that Salhi had been sentenced to death by the Isfahan Revolutionary Court.
Lawrence urged the Iranian authorities to overturn Salehi's death sentence and release him immediately and unconditionally. "All those imprisoned for exercising their freedom of opinion and expression, including artistic expression, must be released," he stressed. ”
So far, nine people have been executed in connection with the 2022 Amini protests. High Commissioner Türk urged the Government of Iran to immediately halt the imposition of the death penalty and to suspend the executions. He stressed that the death penalty is possible only for the "most serious" crimes, that is, extremely serious crimes involving the intentional or direct cause of the death of another person.
