Iran police said smart surveillance equipment would be placed in public areas. (Representative)
Tehran, Iran:
Police in Iran said on Saturday it plans to use “smart” technology in public places to identify and then punish women who violate the country’s strict Islamic dress code.
A statement said the force would “take action to identify people breaking the rules using equipment and smart cameras in public places and intersections”.
The police will then send “evidence and warning messages to violators of the hijab law” to “inform them of the legal consequences of repeating this offence”.
The number of women violating Iran’s mandatory dress code has increased since a wave of protests following the death in custody of Kurdish-Iranian Mahsa Amini, 22, for allegedly violating it.
“Starting next Saturday, people who remove their burqas will be identified using smart devices,” Iran’s police chief Ahmad-Reza Radan said in an interview with state television.
“People who take off their hijab in public places will be first warned and the next step will be to appear in court,” Radan said.
Car owners will also receive a warning message if a passenger violates the dress code and their vehicles will be impounded if the offense is repeated, he added.
Amini died on 16 September, three days after her arrest by the morality police.
His death was followed by a wave of civil protests across the Islamic Republic.
In a separate statement on Saturday, the police said they would not tolerate “any individual or collective behavior and actions that are contrary to the law”.
Last week, a viral video on social media showed a man throwing curd at two women for not wearing hijab.
In late March, the head of the judiciary, Gholamhossein Mohseny Ijei, said, “Removing the hijab is inimical to values and those who commit such an abnormality will be punished”.
Requiring women to wear headscarves in public was established into law shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)