HRW Accuses Iran of "Brutal Repression" of Women

The NGO Human Rights Watch (HRW) issued a statement this week on the two-year anniversary of the death in police custody of 22-year-old Kurdish-Iranian student Mahsa Amini, accusing the regime that rules in Teheran of "brutal repression" of women and other minorities. Recently inaugurated Iranian President Masud Pezeshkian has pledged to end the practice of Iran's morality police harassing women for not having their hair completely covered and such violations of the dress code.

But the morality police and other security agencies are very powerful in Iran and it is unclear what Pezeshkian can realistically do to limit their activities.

"The authorities have failed to answer for the killing of hundreds and the arrest of thousands, and they have systematically continued their suppression of opponents, civil society, and human rights defenders," HRW quoted acting Iran researcher Nahid Naghshbandi as saying. "A change in government and a new president have so far done nothing to alter the authorities' repressive actions toward dissent."

"Imprisoned women in Iran are reviving the 'Women, Life, Freedom' movement through hunger strikes, protest letters, and sit-ins, continuing their activism despite severe sentences," HRW said.

Imprisoned Iranian Nobel Peace laureate and longtime women's rights activist Narges Mohammadi issued a statement as well, complimenting the Women, Life, Freedom movement sparked by Amini's death as part of a lasting "commitment to achieving democracy, freedom, and equality and to defeating theocratic despotism."