Independent journalist
Ankle monitors once reserved for criminals in Iran are now imposed on activists, turning what is billed as an alternative to prison into a source of humiliation, financial strain and invisible confinement.
“These devices should be used on thieves and fraudsters, not for a teacher who simply demanded her union rights,” says one teacher and union activist.
She recounts how, in the silence of the night, the short beep of her device awakens her five-year-old daughter—a constant reminder that miles away, someone is watching. Barred from stepping more than a kilometer from her home, she must wear the virtual shackle at all times.
She is one of dozens of teachers, artists, students, writers, members of religious minorities and labor activists who, after months or years in prison, now serve the remainder of their sentences under electronic surveillance.
Their names have been withheld due to the likelihood of official retaliation for telling their stories.
The devices are fastened to the leg and tracked around the clock by Iran’s Prisons Organization. In theory, they modernize punishments and reduce prison costs. In practice, they are applied not only to financial, drug or theft offenders but increasingly to civil and political activists.
Bruised—and paying for it
“I am having to pay just to have a shackle strapped to my leg,” one activist remarks.
For many, the devices are humiliating, painful, and financially crushing. Lawyers describe them as tools of harassment, combining physical restriction with constant control.
The locally manufactured monitors are poorly designed: heavy, sharp-edged and often causing wounds or inflammation.
To add insult to injury, users must pay for their shackle: an upfront fee of about $25 and roughly $9 a month thereafter—sums that weigh heavily on activists who are out of work or barred from working.
Restricted lives
“From the hairdresser to the grocery store, people call me a hero and say: ‘Respect for your courage.’ But I’m glad my mother isn’t alive to see me wearing this shackle,” says a female teacher."
The devices typically restrict movement to a 1,000-meter radius around the home, though the exact distance is determined by a judge. The impact is immediate: disrupted jobs, missed family events, lost opportunities and even obstacles to medical care.
Protest singer Vafa Ahmadpour, known online as Vafadar, announced that he lost the chance to travel to the US as an honorary judge at an arts festival because of his ankle monitor.
Some wearers try to hide the device under socks or trousers to avoid stares. Others leave it visible and say most reactions are sympathetic.
Arbitrary power
Some lawyers say monitors allow prisoners to return to a normal life, but others stress the selective and arbitrary way monitors are used against protesters.
“In other countries, these devices are used for actual financial or violent crimes; but in Iran, they’ve become tools for controlling and humiliating protesters and civil defenders and union activists,” says another.
He notes that law enforcement agencies wield wide discretion in deciding who qualifies and under what conditions—leaving activists especially vulnerable.
The stigma of ankle monitoring often blocks people from resuming their jobs. Some have even been forced to move homes so their workplace remains within the permitted radius.
“After my release, the school principal said I needed an official letter from the judge to return to teaching,” a teacher explains. “The judge confirmed I wasn’t legally banned from working, but the school still refused to take me back. I suspect the Intelligence Ministry put pressure on them.”
An invisible prison
Another teacher describes the constant anxiety: “Even going for a jog in the park makes me anxious. Once, I stepped outside the boundary. At 6:30 in the morning, they called and threatened to send me back to prison.”
It’s a recurring theme in conversations with those wearing monitors.
“I went out to buy a book I loved. At the intersection, the device beeped—I remembered I wasn’t allowed to cross. I looked at the book with longing and turned back,” says one author.
“The painful part is that only you can see this invisible boundary. Everyone else can cross it—except you.”
“In Shiraz Adelabad Prison, my cellmates were murderers and dangerous criminals. For me, the ankle monitor was a choice between bad and worse,” says a teacher from Shiraz.
For many, the device remains preferable to the harsh conditions of Iran’s prisons—but only barely.
“This is the least we pay for demanding our rights,” one teacher says.
“The ankle monitor has limited my physical movement, but it hasn’t stopped me from thinking and writing,” says another author. “I still write—and that’s something the government can never take away from me.”
