Iran’s morality police will not ‘bother’ women, president says

It was Pezeshkian’s first press conference since coming into office in July, replacing the ultraconservative Ebrahim Raisi. Signs of a potentially more relaxed attitude to the country’s strict dress code for women were present at Pezeshkian’s press conference on Monday, where some female journalists wore loose head coverings. This was a noticeable departure from previous official events where female journalists are required to appear in full hijab, BBC Monitoring reported. In its report released last week,, external the UN said: “State authorities have expanded repressive measures and policies to further deprive women and girls of their fundamental rights.” It noted the government had “enhanced surveillance of hijab compliance” in both public and private environments while also endorsing an escalation in violence in punishing women and girls who break the rules. “Security forces have further escalated pre-existing patterns of physical violence, including beating, kicking, and slapping women and girls who are perceived as failing to comply with the mandatory hijab laws and regulations,” the UN said. It said authorities had also increasingly invoked the use of the death penalty against women activists and “scaled up” executions of those who had expressed solidarity with the 2022 protests known as the Woman, Life, Freedom movement. “The Bill provides for harsher penalties for women who do not wear the mandatory hijab, including exorbitant financial fines, longer prison sentences, restrictions on work and educational opportunities, and bans on travel,” the UN investigators said. – This Summarize was created by Neural News AI (V1). Source: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckgnn3562yjo