The Washington Post:

By Susannah George, Nilo Tabrizy and Jonathan Baran

With global attention focused on Iran’s escalating conflict with Israel, Tehran has intensified its domestic crackdown on women, giving police expanded powers to enforce conservative dress codes.

The new wave of repression appears to be one of the most significant efforts to roll back perceived social gains in the aftermath of the 2022 protest movement — a months-long uprising that challenged gender segregation and clerical rule. Some Iranians suspect the government is using fears of regional war as cover to tighten its grip at home; others say it’s just the latest salvo in a long-running campaign aimed at extinguishing all forms of dissent.

But the public backlash has been swift. In many instances, videos of women being violently detained showed crowds of bystanders gathering to support them. Now, authorities appear to be responding to pressure to curb their harsh tactics.

On Monday, Iran’s national police made a rare statement to local media about Operation Noor, its new campaign of hijab enforcement. A police spokesperson said that officers would not refer cases to the judiciary, potentially removing the threat of criminal charges for women who have been detained.

The unnamed spokesperson blamed “malicious media streams that seek to divide and polarize society” — an apparent reference to videos of police repression that have gone viral on social media.

The latest videos began emerging the same weekend that Iran launched hundreds of drones and missiles at Israel. The Washington Post spoke to Iranians who have witnessed the crackdown and verified four videos of women being forcibly detained; in one from Tehran, posted April 16, security forces use a stun gun on a woman before dragging her off a city street and into a van.

A spokesman for Iran’s mission to the United Nations in New York declined to comment for this story.

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