Iranian Online Shop Manager Arrested Over Hijab Posts
A senior manager of an Iranian online store for android games and apps has been arrested over her online posts in defiance of mandatory hijab.
A senior manager of an Iranian online store for android games and apps has been arrested over her online posts in defiance of mandatory hijab.
Sabereen News, an Arabic and Persian Telegram channel affiliated with the Revolutionary Guards, released a video showing the arrest of Soraya Rezai Mahvar,the R&D Manager of Myket.
The video also showcases images of tweets by Rezai Mahvar expressing her opposition to the compulsory hijab.
According to Iranian daily Sharq, she was arrested at her workplace last week. However, no information is available about the arresting authority or the reason for her detention.
Several online shopping platforms including online bookshop Taghcheh (Taaghche), online retailer Digikala, and marketing platform Azkey were shot down during the past few days not for their operations, but for the way their employees dressed in photographs posted on social media platforms. The companies Myket and Taaghcheare among the subsidiaries of the holding company Hasin.
Days after several online shopping platforms were shut down by the Iranian government over lack of hijab, the Judiciary claimed it had no role in the decision, revealing the chaos surrounding the way the government enforces compulsory hijab and controls online businesses and social media platforms.
Following the denials by various officials about their involvement in the closure of businesses, social media users noted the chaos in handling hijab and online activities in Iran and wrote that no one in the government is brave enough to accept responsibility for harsh measures.
In fact, it is perhaps not accurate to say that the regime is creating a new agency, rather it is elevating the existing “protection and intelligence” department of its notorious Judiciary to an intelligence “Organization.”
The same process took place 13 years ago when the intelligence department of the Revolutionary Guard was elevated to the status of an ‘organization’ in the aftermath of mass protests in 2009. Since then, the IRGC’s intelligence arm has become the leading instrument for domestic repression.
Media in Tehran say that starting Sunday the Islamic Republic’s parliament will discuss a bill presented more than a year ago to officially elevate Judiciary’s intelligence organization. That would mean more power and budget for another instrument of repression amid the regime’s fear of renewed unrest as the first anniversary of last year’s Mahsa protests approaches.
Last December, a lawmaker commenting on the initiative said that gathering information and reports about sensitive cases “to counter the propaganda campaigns by the global arrogance” is part of the duties of the new organization, indicating that the body will also coordinate with other entities outside the judiciary’s apparatus. “Global arrogance” is a term used by the Islamic Republic to refer to the United States.
The clerical regime is known for its habit of creating parallel bureaucracies, having dozens of organizations for Islamic propaganda, or actually keeping two distinct militaries, the IRGC and the traditional army called Artesh in Persian.
Part of this modus operandi stems from the internal politics of the regime and the need to dole out power and perks to factions and players in its inner circles. But in some areas, such as intelligence it could be an authoritarian impulse not to trust any single organization with the security of the regime’s inner core.
Four decades ago, there was only one official domestic-foreign intelligence bureaucracy – the Ministry of Intelligence – or information, as the Persian word for both is interchangeable. Then came the IRGC and the police intelligence organizations, to be augmented now with Judiciary’s parallel arm.
Unlike Western countries, such as the United States, there is no sign of distinct areas of responsibility between the four top intelligence-security organizations. They all spy on citizens, arrest dissidents with or without a warrant, have their own offices in infamous prisons such as Tehran’s Evin penitentiary. They all interrogate, and torture political prisoners and extract forced confessions. The only discernible distinction is that the Ministry of Intelligence and the IRGC intelligence have extensive foreign operations.
Speaking of foreign espionage and black ops, there is, in fact, a fifth entity, the IRGC Quds Force, that controls tens of thousands of paid militia forces throughout the Middle East. These forces are used for espionage, political influence operations, intimidation of politicians and groups in other countries, and the use of force.
The Iranian regime, which also has smaller intelligence entities has a Council for Intelligence Coordination comprised of at least 13 to 16 separate active intelligence agencies, according to different sources. Most of these parallel agencies have strong ties with the IRGC and the judiciary as well as the office of the Supreme Leader. The intelligence minister, the interior minister, foreign minister, and the country’s chief justice are members of the body. The IRGC’s Intelligence Organization, and its Intelligence Protection Organization, and their counterparts in the traditional Army and Police force as well as cyber police are some of the other members.
