Iran has begun integrating advanced technology, including drones, in its attempts to repress women and girls, a United Nations report published on Friday found.
The independent report was released following two years of independent investigation, which included interviewing some 285 victims and witnesses and analyzing over 38,000 articles of evidence. The research was commissioned following that outcry and protests, which ignited after the Islamic Republic murdered Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini for failing to wear a head covering in a way which met the country’s mandatory hijab law.
Tehran, the investigation found, began using aerial drone surveillance and a new facial recognition software in April 2024 to monitor hijab compliance in public spaces.
In addition to state-run surveillance software, the investigators also identified the mobile application ‘Nazer’ which allows private citizens to report instances of hijab non-compliance to police in real time. Users may add the location, date, time and the license plate number of the vehicle in which the alleged mandatory hijab infraction occurred, which then “flags” the vehicle online, alerting the police.
Tehran was also found to have deactivated the SIM cards of journalists, activists, and human rights defenders in 2024. This, the UN charged, restricted their access to banking and essential services. Those impacted were forced to appear before authorities, who interrogated them, to regain access to their services.
“Surveillance online was a critical tool for State repression. Instagram accounts, for instance, were shut down and SIM cards confiscated, in particular of human rights defenders, including women human rights defenders,” explained the Independent Mission’s Shaheen Sardar Ali.
“In repressing the 2022 nationwide protests, State authorities in Iran committed gross human rights violations, some of which the Mission found to have amounted to crimes against humanity,” said Sara Hossain, Chair of the Fact-Finding Mission. “We heard many harrowing accounts of harsh physical and psychological torture and a wide range of serious fair trial and due process violations committed against children, including some as young as seven years old.”
The Noor plan
In April of 2024, the Police Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran launched the ‘Noor’ plan which promised to compromise on the deployment of officers to “confront women and girls” promoting “social anomalies by appearing without the hijab.”
Following the announcement of the Noor plan, IRGC Commander for Tehran, Hassan Hassanzadeh announced the establishment and deployment of the so-called “ambassadors of kindness,” to monitor hijab compliance in public spaces, including at markets, parks and on public transport.
At least 618 women were arrested in the context of the “Noor” plan, human rights organizations relayed to the UN. It was found that many of these women were subjected to acts of physical violence during their detainments. Women and girls, who were summoned before the Criminal or Revolutionary Court in greater numbers in the second half of 2024, were sentenced to flogging based solely on the testimony of arresting security forces and photos taken during their detention.
“Victims, including children, were subjected to torture and ill-treatment, including beating, flogging and prolonged solitary confinement,” the report found “Torture and ill-treatment were carried out in unofficial detention facilities operated by the IRGC and the Ministry of Intelligence, and in the 2-A and 209 security wards of Evin prison, controlled by the same entities.”
The UN also established numerous cases of sexual violence against women, children and men protesters, “including rape, gang rapes, rape with an object, threats of rape and genital electrocution, including against female relatives, intrusive body searches and gender-specific verbal abuse.” These acts were committed by both members of the police force and the IRGC.
One woman told the UN investigators that a plain clothes officer fired over 200 metal objects at her body, including at her genitalia.
In some cases, prison officials and officers would carry out mock executions to extract confessions, placing nooses around women’s necks and forcing them in front of a firing squad.
In November, a woman by the name of Roshnak Alishah was lashed 14 times for “disturbing public chastity” after she posted a video, without a hijab, confronting a man who had previously assaulted her.
In addition to the physical abuse, the UN confirmed that in at least one instance a woman’s bank account was closed in punishment for not covering her hair and in multiple instances vehicles were seized.
Recent efforts by the Islamic regime have also seen teenage girls pathologized for refusing to cover their hair. In November 2024, the head of the Department of Women and Family at the Headquarters for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice announced opening a “clinic” targeting teenage girls to undergo “scientific and psychological treatment for hijab removal,” the investigation found.
The investigation also found multiple instances of extra-judicial executions, explained away by Tehran as suicides, which included the murders of three children: Sarina Ismaeilzadeh, Nika Shakarami and Sarina Saiedi.
“The State response to these deaths is reminiscent of its handling of other incidents, and the killings of individuals at or near protest sites, and as such, forms part of a systematic pattern to conceal the truth and evade potential responsibility for the deaths,” the investigators shared. “This includes delayed or flawed investigations into the deaths, contradictory State narratives on the cause of death, withholding information such as medical and toxicology reports to attest for a “suicide,” and cases where the mission found indicia of physical violence perpetrated by State agents concomitant to or preceding the death.
“It also includes credible information from relatives contesting the official narratives on the cause(s) of the deaths, coupled with persistent threats and arrests, denial of commemorative services, criminal charges and sentencing (including to flogging) of family members, for seeking justice for the death of their loved ones.”
Tehran’s future
The UN investigation also found that the arrests cemented an existing discriminatory framework which victimized women and girls. While already deemed a violation of women’s rights by the UN, a drafted legislation which has not yet been adopted would see harsher punishments distributed for failing to cover up.
Under the proposed legislation, women could face up to 10 years in prison, a fine of up to the equivalent of $12,000 for non-compliance and even the death penalty if their conduct is deemed to amount to “corruption on earth.”
The new law would also further delegate enhanced enforcement powers to Iran’s security apparatus and to citizens and businesses, while also increasing the use of technology and surveillance.
Targeting religious and ethnic minorities and LGBT people
The investigators found Iran carried out large-scale arrests in provinces with a larger population of religious and ethnic minorities. The arrests saw victims, including children, held in unofficial IRGC facilities.
The UN officials found two unofficial facilities run by the IRGC in the East Azerbaijan province, which detained Azerbaijani Turk protesters.
The detainees were subjected to “particularly egregious forms of torture,” the UN found. This torture included waterboarding, sexual violence, being suspended from the ceiling by their arms, forcibly administered unknown substances, and solitary confinement for up to 18 days.
In other facilities in Sistan and Baluchestan, IRGC officials prevented detainees from sleeping during the night, subjected them to racist language and forced them into unsanitary conditions.
Ethnic and religious minorities were also found to have been charged at a higher rate with and convicted of national security offences by Revolutionary Courts, including for “gathering and colluding to commit crimes against security,” “disrupting public order,” and “propaganda against the system.”
The report noted that the Islamic regime was one of the few states to continue to impose the death penalty on LGBT persons. This, the UN noted, put LGBT individuals at greater risk when and if they chose to demonstrate.
The UN noted that escaping the geographic boundaries of Iran often does not stop the state’s attempts at repression, with Tehran often leveraging the lives of family members still living in the state to silence whistleblowers.
Journalists have also repeatedly been threatened and the IRGC has orchestrated murder and kidnapping attempts to further silence dissidents, the UN found. Since 2022, at least 15 instances of attempted murder or abduction were documented in the United Kingdom alone.
