Iran's Leader Downplays Missile Accuracy In Strikes On Israel

“Foreign meddling” seeks to bring about a change of the political system in Iran by using “women as a tool within the framework of a so-called opposition,” Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, the Islamist regime’s foreign minister said in an interview with CNN in response to a question about increasing pressure on Iranian women to impose the hijab.

Iran's ruler, Ali Khamenei has repeatedly denounced women opposing the imposition of Islamic practices on their chosen way of life, even branding them as enemies: "Removing the hijab is by sharia and politically forbidden... however... the enemy entered this business with a roadmap and a plan; we must also enter with a roadmap and a plan."

Do Iranian women possess the potential to be a viable opposition? How does Khamenei perceive “the enemy's” strategy? What strategy do women employ when confronting a government that views them as adversaries?

The potential for women to become an opposition force

Iranian women have a high capacity to spearhead the opposition to the Islamist regime. Although more than half of the university student population are women, their share in the Iranian labor market is about 14%. The share of Iranian women in the country's top management is less than 6%.

In terms of rights violations, women face the most structural and legal infringements after the Baha'i religious community. These violations span from family and education to employment and public service, encompassing human rights abuses and denying equal opportunities. Hence, there's no necessity for "foreign enemies" to provoke women into opposition; their circumstances and oppressions necessitate it.

The women's movement against the violation of their fundamental rights stands as the most active anti-government social movement today. In contrast, other movements like labor, retirees, and teachers’ movements, while significant, are less directly targeted at the government, Shia Islamism, and Shia clergy.

“Enemy’s plan”

When Ali Khamenei talks about the enemy's plan, he means any action that challenges the regime, including not observing the hijab. He believes any challenge is organized and directed by foreign enemies. This attitude also has a practical aspect: when the opposition is rooted abroad, its suppression with coercive forces becomes legitimate, and women who commit civil disobedience should be treated as foreign agents.

In April 2024, the government launched a new hybrid war against women. The following methods are used in this war:

1. Deploying shockers to incapacitate women who protest verbally and behaviorally or resist arrest;

2. Throwing blankets over women’s heads during their arrest for hijab violation;

3. Deploying plainclothes agents next to the special police units to prevent the protest of passers-by;

4. Insulting and verbally humiliating women and sexually harassing them during detention;

5. Deploying formidable agents with obscured faces to enhance intimidation; and

6. Displaying street banners that equate hijab with morality and religiosity.

In this operation, women are arrested with minimal resistance. The latest crackdown on women is no longer carried out by regular morality police or patrols; it involves a special police unit.

Protesting women's plan

Today, the Iranian women's movement against Islamist totalitarianism, which has persisted through fluctuations over the past 45 years, exhibits three key characteristics:

A. Nationwide networking. Iranian women activists are connected in a nationwide network. This network includes three social groups: 1) Former and current women prisoners who have been persecuted simply because of their beliefs or expressing their opinions. Their number has risen to thousands in the last decade, 2) Bereaved wives, mothers, and sisters whose children, brothers and husbands were killed or executed by the government and who themselves spent a period in prison for demanding justice; and 3) women who have been active in labor, student, teacher, environmental and retirees’ movements. They gather outside prisons and cemeteries to protest. The nodes of these networks are constantly under pressure from the intelligence agencies; those who have the power to organize and mobilize have been kept in prison for years, such as Sepideh Qolian, Bahareh Hedayat, and Fatemeh Sepehri.

B. Social Networks. Politically active Iranian women have a relatively loud voice on social. Many bereaved mothers such as Camelia Sajjadian, Leily Mahdavi, Gohar Eshqi, Mojgan Eftekhari (Masa Amini’s mother), and Nasrin Shahkarami, and others are active on Instagram and call others to protest. Leily Mahdavi, Gohar Eshqi, Nasrin Shahkarami, and Camelia Sajjadian's Instagram pages have about 83k, 36k, 171k, and 89k followers respectively.

C. Protest meetings. The mothers of those killed in the 1988 prison massacre, who congregated at the unofficial Khavaran cemetery, and the mothers of victims from the Green Movement, who assembled in Tehran's Laleh Park, gradually gained recognition as prominent groups. Following movements such as those in December 2017, November 2019, and the Mahsa Movement, bereaved mothers, sisters, and wives continued to convene at cemeteries, overwhelming the government's capacity to station security forces at every gravesite to prevent their gatherings. These ongoing meetings have fostered networks and actions that unsettle the government.

While the issues of hijab and the killing of protesters serve as rallying points for women and the mothers of victims, worsening economic conditions in Iran provide further motivation for women's protests.

The event occurred on April 12, in a match between Esteghlal FC and Aluminium Arak when a young female fan evaded security by running onto the field and embracing Hosseini as a means of escaping guards chasing her for not wearing the compulsory hijab. The act led to a scuffle involving Hosseini and special unit forces.

The disciplinary committee responded to the incident by suspending Hosseini for one session and imposing a fine of three billion rials (approximately $4,500).. It was deemed "unprofessional and beyond the legal duties of a player".

In a public reaction, the goalkeeper's captain made a sarcastic remark about the committee's decision, stating, "I will pay the fine, for the sake of that lady." Further complicating matters, IRNA, Iran's official news agency, reported that Hosseini might face additional penalties due to his recent public comments, suggesting that his previous suspension could now be enforced.

Legal analysts have noted that the disciplinary committee's actions appear to be in violation of existing regulations as Hosseini did not breach any specific laws during the incident, other than breaking Islamic rules about opposite sexes being in physical contact. The case has brought to light the broader issue of women's access to stadiums in Iran—a topic of significant debate and international concern for several years.

Since five years ago, FIFA has been urging Iran to allow women into football stadiums. However, the Football Federation and other governmental bodies have resisted the changes, often citing “inadequate infrastructure” as a reason for non-compliance. Despite occasional allowances for controlled entry of women into stadiums, the ongoing restrictions predominantly limit their presence, leading to sporadic participation in matches.

“Last year, the financial resources allocated to the preservation and restoration of historical sites were 900,000 Tomans ($200) and monuments 13 million Tomans ($3,000),” Ali Darabi said on Tuesday. “The fact that all this historical greatness and cultural heritage should be preserved and restored with this minimal budget is beyond me.”

With 27 sites, Iran ranks among the top 10 countries with the most cultural heritage sites in UNESCO's World Heritage List. As a baseline, a report from 2023 in Euronews shows an €800 million budget for preserving cultural heritage in Italy. A similar budget for Germany in 2020 was €647 million.

Immediately following these remarks, media reports and expert opinions warned of the long-standing mismanagement that has threatened the survival of historical monuments. In particular, the poor condition of Persepolis, the 2500-year-old epicenter of the Achaemenid Empire, was highlighted.

Specialists warned that this UNESCO World Heritage Site faces a crisis of lichen fungus invasion. While a combination of acid rain and the region's climate is responsible for the growth of the lichen, experts have criticized the National Heritage Department for failing to protect the site.

Maziar Kazemi, former head of the conservation department at Persepolis, told Iran International: "Lichens are one of the natural factors that contributed to the destruction of the Achaemenid sites of the past. Parts of the area with more humidity and less direct sunlight always suffer from this problem."

Tackling these issues requires permanent budgets so specialists can conduct continuous research and investigation. They also need to be able to collaborate with international groups.”

He said sites such as Persepolis, which are considered pre-Islamic monuments, have “never received adequate budget allocations”. He also noted the challenges of facilitating the visa issuance process and bilateral cooperation with international teams."

According to Kazemi, an Italian expert team had carried out a joint project to treat lichens some time ago, but the project was abandoned.

“The Ministry of Cultural Heritage's trickle-down budgets and the strictness of entry and exit of foreign expert teams will not allow continuous monitoring of natural damages such as lichen,” Kazemi emphasized.

Experts have also warned that lichens were damaging Iranian cuneiform inscriptions, particularly in Biston, a historical complex located 30 kilometers northeast of Kermanshah city, southwest of Iran.

The Sivand dam is also blamed for increasing humidity around Pasargad and Persepolis. Before it was built in 2007, UNESCO warned about the dangers of the dam to historical monuments.

Speaking to ISNA news agency, Gholamreza Miri highlighted that sanctions and domestic issues have hindered the ability to manage saffron exports effectively.

Direct saffron exports to key markets like the United States and Saudi Arabia are currently unfeasible due to sanctions. Consequently, Iranian saffron is being rerouted through countries like Afghanistan, the UAE, and Spain before reaching the global market.

"To export saffron to China and India, we must pay 38 percent and 14 percent tariffs respectively, which makes it not cost-effective for exporters, thus increasing the finished cost. As a result, some buyers prefer to purchase saffron from Afghan traders or smugglers," he said.

Farshid Manuchehri, Secretary of Iran’s National Saffron Council, reported that Afghanistan had purchased 40 tons of Iranian saffron last year, only to resell it in Iran’s target markets at higher prices, branding it as Afghan-produced.

Miri also noted in January that most of Iran's saffron is smuggled to Afghanistan and packed in Spain.

Miri said that high customs duties and embargoes are among the factors for trafficking with almost half of the value of Iran's annual saffron production ending up in the pockets of smugglers.

The illegal trade is exacerbated by extreme weather conditions that have halved saffron production in Iran, the world's primary supplier of the spice. Climate change has devastated areas once thriving with saffron cultivation, impacting local economies and global supply chains.

Since her arrest on April 15, she has been arrested twice and reportedly faced sexual assault and other abuses at the hands of the morality police, incidents she bravely detailed in public disclosures amid a hardened presence of the patrol vans around Tehran and other cities.

Her re-arrest just one day after her initial arrest aligns with the reactivation of the Plan Noor initiative, under which the morality police have escalated their enforcement of the compulsory hijab. The intensified crackdown has sparked a wave of violent encounters involving women who oppose the dress code regulations, emphasizing the harsh realities faced by those who resist.

The renewed enforcement effort comes in the wake of a directive from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. In a recent sermon, Khamenei demanded increased measures against what he termed "religious norm-breaking" activities, explicitly underscoring the mandatory nature of the hijab as a "religious decree."

The increased enforcement has led to heightened tensions and confrontations across various Iranian cities, signaling an escalation in governmental efforts to impose control over women’s dress—a policy that has been met with persistent resistance since it was mandated in 1981, following the Islamic Revolution.

Iran has battled nationwide hijab rebellion since the death in morality police custody of Mahsa Amini in September 2022, an event which sparked a nationwide uprising and the greatest challenge to the regime since the founding of the Islamic Republic in 1979. During protests, Iran's security forces killed at least 500 civilians and arrested thousands more in a brutal crackdown on dissent which continues to today.