In Fear Of Backlash, Iran Hijab Bill Moves To Secret Talks
Iran’s new hijab bill is becoming murkier still as the parliament has moved to approve it without an open session in fear of further backlash.
Iran’s new hijab bill is becoming murkier still as the parliament has moved to approve it without an open session in fear of further backlash.
The fate of the hijab bill, which legal experts claim is against the Iranian Constitution and not practical to implement due to the government's limited means, took an obscure turn last week after months of heated debate on how to translate it into society.
During a closed-door session on Sunday, Iranian lawmakers voted – 171 for versus 40 against -- that the bill can be considered under Article 85 of the constitution which greenlights the parliament to discuss the bill only in an internal committee and not on the parliament floor, practically sidelining any opposition. The decision was a straw poll and is not yet final, to be discussed and put to a final vote in the coming days. The result of the final vote is clear because the parliamentary party that holds the majority has backed the move.
Normally, the parliament cannot delegate its legislative authority but in necessary cases, it can assign an internal committee to formulate certain laws. The determination of the committee is then sent to the Guardian Council and if it deems the decisions do not go against the Constitution, they can be piloted in the country for a time span determined by the parliament.
Regime lawmaker Moineddin Saeedi, representing the city of Chabahar in the underprivileged province of Sistan and Baluchestan, said “This bill will be discussed in a joint committee without the public being informed of its details, much like the Siyanat (Protection) plan." Ironically titled Legislation to Protect Cyberspace Users’ Rights, the Siyanat plan is a draft bill by ultra-hardliners approved by an ad hoc parliamentary committee in February that led to stricter restrictions on social messaging platforms and access to the global net.
Expressing worries about the repercussions of disregarding the people’s views on the measure, Saeedi said that implementing the bill this way would only, contrary to the regime's plans, exacerbate popular concerns.
According to lawmaker Ahmad Naderi, a member of the parliament's presidium, “A joint committee consisting of members from three committees, namely the Judicial and Legal Committee, the Cultural Committee, and possibly the Social Committee, will be formed to discuss the details of this bill and its enactment.” He added that “the decision on the bill's passage into law will be made discreetly and without being presented in the open session of the parliament.”
The uprising that was sparked by the death in police custody of Mahsa Amini in September has made it increasingly difficult for the clerical regime to enforce the mandatory Islamic dress code. Since the beginning of the ‘Women, Life, Freedom’ movement, tens of thousands of girls and women have shed their compulsory hijab. To avoid the public backlash over the violent enforcement of hijab laws, the Islamic Republic has recently begun implementing a wide range of measures from public humiliation tactics to using traffic cameras to identify women without hijab.
The regime seeks to criminalize hijab defiance but no branch of government wants to be solely responsible for the complications of such an action in society. As debate over how to deal with women who refuse to observe compulsory hijab continues among the authorities, even the hijab or so-called morality police faces a similar reaction by the authorities as they refuse to take responsibility, perhaps due to concern over the upcoming elections.
Political sociologist Mohammad Rahbari says discussing the hijab bill behind closed doors means that “no one will take responsibility for this bill, neither the judiciary, nor the government, and not even the parliament.”
He believes that the fate of such “a law that none of its decision-making entities is willing to take responsibility for” will either not lead to tangible actions or its implementation will be as opaque as the internet protection law. “The common point of both these bills is that many people oppose them, and that’s why members of the parliament do not have the courage to openly discuss them,” he noted.
Lawmaker Hassan Norouzi, a member of the Judicial and Legal Committee, was questioned by a reporter on Tuesday as to whether or not it was better that the people were aware of the details and processes of the hijab bill. He replied, “It has been transparent enough. This law is a matter of governance, and what concerns the people is to abide by it.”
He was asked again if the joint committee will share its final decisions with the public, to which he replied frankly, “No. It's possible that media outlets may say something and the whole plan gets obliterated,” further undermining the credibility of the media in a country deemed one of the world's worst for press freedom.
The "Hijab and Chastity" bill, which was sent to the Islamic Consultative Assembly by the administration of Ebrahim Raisi, initially comprised of only 15 articles. Now in its final days, it has 70 articles with its fate still in limbo.
Germany’s government and the country’s Bosch corporation are facing heavy criticism after Iran International reported on Monday that the engineering giant Bosch sold surveillance equipment to Iran. Germany’s ARD first revealed the alleged Bosch impropriety.
The United States sanctioned the Chinese company Tiandy last December for supplying video surveillance equipment to Iran and in January the European Union imposed sanctions on a firm that represents Tiandy in Iran.
Iranian activists told the German news outlet that the Danish security company Milestone Systems delivered video analysis software to Iran. Milestone told the outlet that it sold its software to Iran until 2019. The German news organization said Milestone Systems provided the video management software XProtect, an open platform that can be used for various purposes, to Iran.
The Danish company’s website states that XProtect can also be used to compare faces. ARD wrote “Milestone’s software can be combined with surveillance cameras from different manufacturers -- including cameras from Bosch.”
According to Iranian activists, the clerical regime also uses cameras from Sweden and the Netherlands. The companies from Sweden and Holland were not named.
Iran International has learned that Germany’s foreign ministry is referring press queries to Bosch. According to a Bosch statement to ARD, the engineering company sold 8,000 security cameras between 2016 and 2018 to Iran. However, Bosch claims its cameras cannot be used for fully automatic facial recognition.
Germany’s foreign ministry remains mum on the controversial sale of Bosch security cameras to Iran’s regime that can be used to track protesters and women who defy the mandatory hijab.
According to sources, Germany’s foreign ministry is punting media questions to government website information about its export sanctions imposed on Iran and to information about German trade with Iran’s regime being at a historic law.
It is unclear why Germany’s export control agency green-lighted the Bosch sale of mass surveillance technology to Iran’s regime.
Iran International reached out to numerous Bosch spokespeople, including its communication head, Christof Ehrhart, and Natalie Kuzhim, who is responsible for the Middle East. Bosch refused to answer a detailed Iran International press query about the corporation’s alleged misconduct.
Iran International learned that Germany’s foreign ministry has pointed to a diplomatic statement on X, formerly known as Twitter, about Iran’s new crackdown on women.
Tobias Tunkel, Director of Middle East and North Africa for the German foreign ministry,wrote on August 1 on X: “Iran’s new so-called ‘hijab-and-chastity’ legal draft effectively aims to ban unveiled women from public life. If passed into law, it would further exacerbate the systemic oppression against women and girls in Iran. #WomensRightsAreHumanRights.”
Tunkel’s message on X received a mere 3 retweets and 5 likes as of Monday evening. Germany’s foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, claims she is promoting a “feminist foreign policy.” Baerbock has refused to classify Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a foreign terrorist organization.
The Jomhouri Eslami newspaper, a conservative daily critical of Raisi's economic and foreign policies throughout the past two years, stated that halfway through his presidency, Raisi can no longer blame the previous government for his failures. The daily also reminded that unlike his predecessors, Raisi enjoyed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's wholehearted support and had likeminded conservatives dominating the other branches of the government supporting him.
The daily went on to say that despite what Raisi thought during his first days in office, by now he must know that no one can run the affairs of the state without a balanced foreign policy. He should also realize that Iran's membership at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and his government's ties with China, Russia, and some Latin American and African states have not helped the people and could be even harmful to the economy.
An 83-percent increase in printing money, a 95-percent rise in the rate of exchange for the US dollar and a 114-percent price increases for essential goods also show that Raisi and his colleagues have no true understanding of the country's situation and the impact of foreign policy on worsening conditions, the daily added.
The issue of the regime’s anti-West foreign policy and its failure to resolve the nuclear dispute with the United States have become key issues in recent months as US sanctions cripple the economy.
Centrist daily Ham Mihan published analysis by several experts about Raisi's dismal record. The daily wrote that he has badly failed in controlling inflation and meeting his promises to create one million jobs and build one million homes every year.
Ham-Mihan noted that Raisi had to reshuffle his economic team several times during the past two years to no avail, and the performance of his economic team cannot be defended. As an example, Ham-Mihan noted that the US dollar has nearly redoubled during the past two years against the rial, which has fallen from 250,000 per dollar to nearly 500,000.
The experts told Ham-Mihan that Raisi has failed to facilitate growth for businesses. The experts also criticized the Raisi administration for not having any economic plans, and for making bureaucracy more complicated than it used to be. Even projects such as selling government assets have not met their objectives, because instead of leading to productivity they simply maximized the profits of insider groups.
The experts charged that there is no prospect for any improvement in the economy, which the government is simply unable to manage. They attributed that to "The President's inefficiency, the conflicts of interests between various groups of his supporters and more conflicts among various parts of the government."
Meanwhile, in a report on the state of the economy halfway through Raisi's presidency, economic daily Donya-ye Eghtesad wrote that Raisi should re-consider and review all of his policies for the second half of his presidency. "The inflation rate, lack of economic growth, the high risks involved in doing business in Iran, and low investment rates are among the problems that need to be tackled," the daily wrote.
While the inflation rate was 14.7 percent in the first year and 12.7 percent in the second year of President Hassan Rouhani's presidency, the Raisi administration has been struggling with a 49.1% inflation rate in its first year and a 39.4% inflation rate in its second year, the paper said, citing official figures considered by experts to be too low.