Iran turns to tech to crush dissent: UN probe

Iran is increasingly using digital and surveillance technology and "state-sponsored vigilantism" to crush dissent after the "Women, Life, Freedom" protests in 2022, a UN investigation said Friday.

Tehran is making "concerted state efforts to stifle dissent, perpetuating a climate of fear and systematic impunity", the United Nations' Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Iran said in a new report.

These involve "the increased use of technology and surveillance, including through state-sponsored vigilantism".

Iran was rocked by demonstrations after the September 2022 death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old who had been arrested for allegedly violating the strict dress rule for women based on Islamic sharia law.

Widespread anger led to weeks of taboo-breaking protests against the country's government under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

In November 2022, the UN Human Rights Council created a high-level investigation into the deadly crackdown.

The fact-finding mission's chair Sara Hossain told a press conference Friday that the trajectory had shifted from extreme violence during the protests' peak to "a silencing and repression that's ongoing".

- Criminalisation and surveillance -

"For two years, Iran has refused to adequately acknowledge the demands for equality and justice that fuelled the protests in 2022," Hossain said.

"The criminalisation, surveillance and continued repression of protesters, families of victims and survivors, in particular women and girls, is deeply worrying."

Since April 2024, Iran increased the policing and criminal prosecutions of women defying the mandatory wearing of the hijab, the probe said.

In its first report, the mission found that the violent crackdown on peaceful protests and discrimination against women and girls resulted in serious rights violations, many amounting to crimes against humanity.

Its new report went deeper into patterns of violations and crimes, and their evolution following the protests.

The investigators said that so far 10 men had been executed in the context of the protests, while at least 11 men and three women remain at risk of being executed.

- Technology 'amplifying' control -

"The state has leveraged digital tools to silence dissent, with technology amplifying and extending state control to restrict freedom of expression and association, and to control narratives," the mission said.

Hossain said Tehran had "massively engaged" in surveillance and restriction of speech in the digital realm.

The Nazer app, for example, allows vetted individuals to report non-compliance in private vehicles. In September, it was updated to monitor women "in ambulances, public transport or taxis", the report said.

The confiscation of vehicles from women for alleged violations of the hijab laws also persisted, it added.

Mission member Shaheen Sardar Ali highlighted the "chilling enhancing of surveillance through apps, drones and the use of facial recognition technology", which is "very far-reaching and highly intrusive".

Hossain said that while facial recognition technology was being used worldwide, "what's unusual and extraordinary" in Iran was its use to monitor "what a woman wears or doesn't wear".

Furthermore, in April 2024 in Tehran and southern Iran, the state used aerial drone surveillance to monitor hijab compliance, the report said.

- 'Continuously intimidated' -

Iran's judicial system lacks basic independence, the mission said, and victims seeking accountability are denied justice and "continuously intimidated, threatened, arrested, and subjected to criminal prosecution" along with their families.

"It is therefore imperative that comprehensive accountability measures also continue to be pursued outside the country," Sardar Ali said.

The probe, which is wrapping up, has collected and preserved 38,000 evidence items and interviewed 285 victims and witnesses over two years

Iran denied the mission access to the country.

Rather than seeking a prolongation of its own investigation, the mission called for a new probe into rights violations with a broader scope than just the protests and their aftermath.

The report will be presented to the Human Rights Council on Tuesday.

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