Tehran to Women: Don’t Drive Without a Hijab... Or Else

Published originally under the title "Iran: Women's Cars Can Be Impounded if They're Caught without Hijab."

Ahnaf Kalam

The Islamic Republic of Iran issued a new order to the police to enforce the country’s strict control over women, stating if a woman fails to wear a hijab in a vehicle, the authorities can impound the car after a warning.

The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) translated an April 17 video published by the Iranian regime-controlled Fars News Agency. According to MEMRI, “the directive was sent by the Interior Ministry and Judiciary to the Public Security Police. According to the video, if a woman is caught without a hijab in a car, the police will send the owner of the car a warning in a text message. If the ‘offense’ is repeated, the car owner stands having his car impounded.

MEMRI wrote that the video ends with the statement: “A law-abiding citizen – a safe and peaceful society.”

MEMRI posted the transcript and series of screenshots from the Fars News Agency program on its Iran Studies Project webpage.

AAIRA director: Iran’s regime is a gender-apartheid

The director of the US-based Alliance Against Islamic Regime of Iran Apologists (AAIRA), Lawdan Bazargan told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday, “the Islamic regime of Iran is a gender-apartheid regime that has no respect for women, human life, or human dignity. Not only have we been fighting this brutal regime and its draconian hijab laws for the past 44 years, but we also had to fight the United Nations, US, and European governments eager to do business with this brutal regime for profit, who try to normalize this medieval and terrorist regime.

“After the death of Mahsa Amini in the hands of the morality police and the uprisings in Iran, we were able to campaign and kick IRI out of UN Commission on the Status of Women.”

Iran’s regime reportedly tortured and murdered Amini in mid-September for her alleged failure to cover hair properly with a hijab in Tehran. Amini’s murder sparked nationwide protests in Iran.

MEMRI’s translation of the Fars News program reports a narrator said, “according to a directive sent by the Interior Ministry and the Judiciary to the Public Security Police, and according to public demand and Article 638 of the Islamic Penal Code, the police has an obligation to act in order to control social norms and maintain society’s security and peace of mind.”

The Fars News narrator continues: “According to the new plan, the first time [a woman is caught] removing her hijab in a car, a text message from the police will be sent to the owner of the car, and a warning will be issued in order to protect social norms. If you want to challenge it, you can click the attached link and express you objection. The police will accept this unconditionally at first.”

Fars News is affiliated with the US-designated terrorist entity, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The Fars News program said “When a hijab is removed for the second time, another text message will be sent to the owner of the car, informing him that the vehicle is automatically impounded for 15 days. During this period of time, no administrative services will be provided for the car, and it may not be driven. If during these 15 days no similar offense is committed, the car will be released from impound automatically.”

According to the Iranian authorities, if a woman fails to wear her hijab “for a third time, a text message will be send to the owner, informing him that the vehicle is impounded, and he must not drive it until further notice by the police. At the first opportunity, the police will contact him, and discuss with him whether to impound the car and clamp its wheel at his own garage, or he will be provided with the name of a parking lot, [where he can park the car] and hand the receipt over to the police. Needless to say that after a week, when all the legal steps are completed, the vehicle will be released.”

Bazargan took the UN to task for mainstreaming Iran’s regime. She said “Now the UN shamelessly appointed Iran as the Chair of the UN Human Rights Council Social Forum and elected Iran to UN Commission on Crime Prevention. After killing children on the streets, raping and blinding protesters, arresting more than 20,000, executing scores of people, and using chemical gas against more than 350 children’s schools, the UN suddenly decided to reward this rogue regime.

She added " Despite tens of thousands of people demanding Iran Revolutionary Guards be designated as a terrorist group, the European Union refused to do it, and Biden’s government asked England not to do so. We wonder why democratic countries are putting all their eggs in the basket of a brutal Islamic regime instead of helping the Iranian people. The past 44 years of appeasement policy is a failure and must be replaced by a maximum-pressure campaign, including the elimination of the leaders of IRGC using drones.”

Banafsheh Zand, an Iranian-American journalist, told the Post that Mahsa Amini is the most recent in the Khomeinist regime’s relentless attack on women since 1979, and no matter how hard Iranian women have fought, the Western world, which prior to the 1979 Khomeinist takeover condemned the Shah for not being feminist enough, has willfully turned a deaf ear, for lucrative business deals. Western liberals and so-called feminists, specifically, have shown their ideological hypocrisy and cultural imperialism where women’s rights issues in places like Iran are concerned.

She added that “The Khomeinist regime is now exposed for its decades of violence and misogyny and is doing every little thing it can, pulling out all the stops in devastating more of Iran. It is also trying to see just how far he can push international outrage in order to make a point. This is the exact character of the Shia Mafia, which all of us Iranians have seen for more than 44 years now.”

Benjamin Weinthal, a Middle East Forum writing fellow, reports on Israel, Iran, Syria, Turkey and Europe for Fox News Digital. Follow him on Twitter at @BenWeinthal.

Benjamin Weinthal is an investigative journalist and a Writing Fellow at the Middle East Forum. He is based in Jerusalem and reports on the Middle East for Fox News Digital and the Jerusalem Post. He earned his B.A. from New York University and holds a M.Phil. from the University of Cambridge. Weinthal’s commentary has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, Haaretz, the Guardian, Politico, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Ynet and many additional North American and European outlets. His 2011 Guardian article on the Arab revolt in Egypt, co-authored with Eric Lee, was published in the book The Arab Spring (2012).
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