November 25 marks the International Day to Eliminate Violence Against Women. This is a good opportunity to briefly review the conduct of the Iranian clerical regime and its state-sponsored violence against women in Iran.
The mullahs’ regime in Iran is inherently misogynous. This means that the regime invigorates its forces and its policies around subjugation of women and gender discrimination.
Two hallmarks of violence against women in Iran are: 1. it is state-sponsored, and 2. it is institutionalized in the law and promoted by it.
Consequently, Iran has one of the highest statistics on violence against women. Officials admit that violence against women has had a drastic rise in recent years. While admitting that the latest research done on violence against women in Iran was done 14 years ago, regime’s experts have revealed that 66% of Iranian women have experienced violence in their lifetime.
The regime’s social researchers and experts also admit that the legal, judicial and disciplinary structures are set up in a way that men permit themselves to use force and violence against women. (The official IRNA news agency – July 18, 2019)
State-sponsored violence to impose the compulsory veil are the most common form of violence against women in Iran. The Commander of the State Security Force, Hossein Ashtari, acknowledged in September 2016, that his forces arrest at least 2,000 women every day in cities across the country, for flouting the veil. These arrests are accompanied by force and violence.
More than domestic violence, Iranian women are exposed to violence directed against them by the clerical regime’s forces everywhere, every day, and round the clock.
The mullahs’ parliament published a report in July 2018 admitting that more than 70% of Iranian women do not believe in the compulsory veil and are considered “improperly veiled.” More than 85% of the “improperly veiled” do not approve of government intervention to
enforce the veil.
Yet, every year, the security forces’ measures to confront Iranian women’s opposition to the compulsory veil become tougher and more violent.
The arrest in late June of a young woman, 15, in a park in Tehran for not observing the veil during a water-gun game with her friends outraged the public.
