Iran Will Not Tolerate Enemy Drones In Region – Military Chief
Iran's most senior military commander says the "enemies" endanger the safety of navigation by launching and sending small unmanned reconnaissance maritime drones.
Iran's most senior military commander says the "enemies" endanger the safety of navigation by launching and sending small unmanned reconnaissance maritime drones.
Ali Khan-Mohammadi, spokesman of the Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil Headquarters, said Sunday the activists who worked for “the enemy” and “combated the Islamic Republic’s hijab rules in various ways” were arrested in concurrence with the implementation of the Hijab and Chastity Regulations in government offices, he added.
He did not provide more details, but some social media activists and women who removed their headscarves in public as a sign of protest have been arrested since mid-July.
Hardline media say implementation of the Hijab and Chastity Regulations will soon be more strictly applied in other establishments such as shopping centers. Authorities are also giving more power to law enforcement, security guards in public parks, as well as ordinary citizens to admonish those whose appearance does not conform with the prescribed dress code.
Although the government says “admonishment”, but special morality police scouting the streets actually arrest women for violating the Islamic dress code.
Harsher than usual enforcement of the hijab in the past few months has raised protests from many in Iran including some moderate religious and political figures.
In early July President Ebrahim Raisi ordered the implementation of stricter regulations. He put an ideological spin on the issue and accused foreign enemies of the Islamic Republic and Islam of using extensive satellite TV and social media networks to “target the society’s cultural backbone and foundations of its religious values.”
Khan-Mohammadi, a low-ranking cleric, also alleged that “the enemy” conducts intensive cultural activities against the hijab, including through importing goods and clothing that are against the society’s Islamic norms, and thanked security and intelligence forces for neutralising such plots.
There is no evidence of any foreign conspiracy, except some Iranian activists in the West campaigning against compulsory hijab. One such activist in the United States was even reportedly targeted for kidnapping or assassination by Islamic Republic agents.
The staff of the Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil Headquarters are trained and responsible for admonishing or detaining citizens, particularly women if Islamic regulations, including hijab rules, are ignored or not abided by.
In the past few months women and anti-hijab activists have come under such intense pressure that even many women who wear the hijab by choice have joined a social media campaign against forced hijab and hijab enforcement street patrols.
Sepideh Rashno, a 28-year-old artist and writer, for instance, was arrested because of an acrimonious dispute with a hijab enforcer in a city bus on July 16 and posting a video of her quarrel with the hijab enforcer on social media which went viral.
She was tortured into denouncing herself and other activists, expressing regrets for her confrontation with the hijab enforcer, and posting the video on social media.
Rashno has not been put on trial yet, but her so-called “confessions” were aired by the state-run television (IRIB) soon after her arrest. She had been so badly beaten before the telecast that bruises were quite visible on her face.
Rashno has been charged with “association and collusion with the intention of committing a crime against the country's security through communication with foreigners and propaganda activity against the Islamic Republic and encouraging people to commit corruption and prostitution" and “propaganda against the Islamic Republic”. Authorities have set Rashno’s bail at a very high sum of 8 billion rials.
Major General Mohammad Bagheri, the chief of staff for the Armed Forces of the Islamic Republic, made the remarks on Monday referring to a series of encounters between Iranian and United States naval forces last week.
"Enemies are trying to compensate for the reduction of force in the Middle East by creating new units," he said, adding that “They endanger maritime security by dispatching small unmanned surveillance drones, but the armed forces' response to vessels wandering in open waters will be decisive."
He also criticized Israel joining the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), calling it a ‘threat’ for Iran. “We do not tolerate the presence of the Zionist regime," Bagheri said, noting that "We will not make any compromises regarding the rights of the Iranian nation and the security of our seas and lands,"
Iran seized and released two American sea drones in the Red Sea on Friday. Later in the day, US officials reported that Iran returned the two captured maritime drones after being confronted by US destroyers but the unmanned vessels were missing their cameras.
On Tuesday, the US Naval Forces Central Command said that the US Navy -- named Shahid Baziar -- from capturing an unmanned vessel operated by the US 5th Fleet in the Persian Gulf.
Iran’s tough military tone is coupled with its hardening of diplomatic posture in the ongoing talks to revive the 2015 nuclear agreement, the JCPOA.
