World
AI enabling Iran’s crackdown on women as authoritarian regime uses tech to enforce head covering
The Islamic Republic of Iran’s use of artificial intelligence (AI) to crack down on its populace is having a particular impact on the freedoms of Iranian women.
Behnam Ben Taleblu, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told Fox News Digital the Iranian regime “is moving into the AI realm to benefit even more from technology that links together the disparate elements of facial recognition, CCTV, cell phone analysis, traffic geolocation and internet monitoring,” which “bolster its cyber crackdown on street protesters or women who don’t wear their hijab correctly.”
Enhanced AI tools will be a key facet of the forthcoming Hijab and Chastity Bill, approved by the Iranian Parliament in September 2023 and awaiting ratification from the regime’s Guardian Council.
Taleblu said AI has become “the cherry on the sundae of Iran’s digital repression, whether that starts with very crude tools like CCTV in a shop or whatever repository of purportedly criminal behavior that the regime puts at the feet of these AI sorting tools. Because humans don’t have to make the linkages, it frees up more manpower for mischief from the Iranian repressive apparatus.”
IRANIAN PRESIDENT’S WIFE SAYS HIJAB LAW DONE ‘OUT OF RESPECT FOR WOMEN’ AS VIOLATORS FACE 10 YEARS IN PRISON
A huge mural of Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader painted next to a smaller one of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, right, on Motahari Street March 8, 2020, in Tehran, Iran. ( Kaveh Kazemi/Getty Images)
Article 30 of the Hijab and Chastity Bill states police will “create and strengthen intelligent systems for identifying perpetrators of illegal behavior using tools such as fixed and mobile cameras,” Iran International reported. Article 60 forces private businesses to turn in video footage to enforcement personnel to check for compliance.
Businesses that fail to comply could lose “two to six months worth of profits.” Women who fail to cover their hair properly face consequences ranging from fines to “social exclusion, exile, closure of social media pages, passport confiscation for up to two years” and possibly imprisonment for up to 10 years.
Iranians protests the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini after she was detained by the morality police in Tehran, Oct. 1, 2022. (The Associated Press)
Taleblu explained the Hijab and Chastity Bill allows authorities to use AI to leverage “lawfare and economic warfare against women” by going after non-compliant women’s homes, cars, bank accounts and livelihoods.
U.N. experts say the bill allows Iran to govern “through systemic discrimination with the intention of suppressing women and girls into total submission,” which amounts to gender persecution, or gender apartheid.
IRAN LOOKS TO AI TO WEATHER WESTERN SANCTIONS, HELP MILITARY TO FIGHT ‘ ON THE CHEAP’
CCTV cameras on a street in Tehran, Iran, April 9, 2023. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters)
Long before the bill’s passage, the regime began preparing for increased AI use, installing new cameras throughout Iran as early as April 2023. A report from Amnesty International detailed increasing pressures on Iranian women between April 15, 2023, and June 14, 2023. During this period, an Iranian police spokesperson claimed police had sent “almost 1 million SMS warning messages to women captured unveiled in their cars” and 133,174 messages about vehicle immobilizations. About 2,000 cars had been confiscated, and more than 4,000 “repeat offenders” had been referred to Iran’s judiciary.
Between April 2023 and March 2024, Amnesty International found the morality police had “ordered the arbitrary confiscation of hundreds of thousands of vehicles” because those inside were improperly covered. Testimony indicates confiscation orders were “based on pictures captured by surveillance cameras or reports from plainclothes agents patrolling the streets and using a police app … to report license plates.” Amnesty also reported that some women were sentenced to prison or flogging, faced fines or were sent to “morality” classes.
WHAT IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)?
Students take to the streets in Iran on the 83rd day of protests in 2022. (National Council of Resistance of Iran)
The regime likely used AI during 2022 protests after the death of Mahsa Amini, who was beaten after being arrested by morality police for wearing her hijab too loosely.
As head of the United Nations’ fact-finding mission into Iran’s 2022 protests, Sara Hossain determined the Iranian regime did use AI to monitor social media platforms during protests, Iran Wire reported.
In October 2023, the U.S. sped up its timeline for blocking exports of AI chips to China, Iran and Russia to curtail their access to advanced AI capabilities.
Iranian police walk a street amid the implementation of the new hijab surveillance in Tehran, Iran, April 15, 2023. (Majid Asgaripour/WANA via Reuters/File Photo)
Taleblu suggested additional methods for controlling access to tech that could “bolster Iran’s digital or cyber repressive apparatus.” He recommends the U.S. work with European firms to increase export controls and keep close track of new Chinese tech subsidiaries operating in Iran. By consistently exposing and sanctioning new firms, the U.S. “increases their transaction costs.”
“There is talk of tech and cyberspace and AI freeing people and building bridges,” Taleblu said, “but the Islamic Republic is really intending to use them to build boundaries and then continue to wall off Iran and impose their will on the population.”
- Protests have continued across Kenya despite President William Ruto’s withdrawal of a controversial tax hike bill.
- Kenyan police on Thursday fired teargas at protesters in Nairobi and blocked roads to the presidential palace.
- Crowds in Mombasa, Kisumu and other cities have demanded President Ruto’s resignation.
Kenyan police fired teargas at dozens of protesters in Nairobi and blocked off roads to the presidential palace on Thursday as crowds took to the streets again nationwide, even after the president bowed to pressure to withdraw a tax hike bill.
Crowds called for President William Ruto to go further and step down in the capital, Mombasa, Kisumu and other centers, though the turnout was well down from the height of the mass rallies sparked by the tax measures over the past week.
Ruto withdrew the legislation including new taxes and hikes on Wednesday, a day after at least 23 people were killed in clashes at protests sparked by his plans, and parliament was briefly stormed and set alight.
KENYA’S PRESIDENT BACKTRACKS ON CONTROVERSIAL TAX INCREASES AFTER DEADLY PROTESTS SHAKE NATION
He is grappling with the most serious crisis of his two-year-old presidency as the youth-led protest movement has grown rapidly from online condemnations of the tax hikes into mass rallies demanding a political overhaul.
Protesters run to take cover outside the Kenyan Parliament after storming the building during a nationwide strike to protest against tax hikes in downtown Nairobi, on June 25, 2024. Kenyan police fired teargas at dozens of protesters and blocked off roads to the presidential palace on Thursday as crowds took to the streets again nationwide, even after the president bowed to pressure to withdraw a tax hike bill. (LUIS TATO/AFP via Getty Images)
Dropping the bill has also hit plans to reduce the budget deficit and borrowing, as demanded by lenders including the International Monetary Fund.
Seven people were rushed to hospital with gunshot wounds in the town of Homa Bay in western Kenya on Thursday, Citizen TV reported, without going into further detail. Police commander Hassan Barua said he had sent officers to check on the report.
In Nairobi, police and soldiers patrolled the streets and blocked access to State House. Police fired teargas to disperse several dozen people who had gathered in the center of the city.
UN-BACKED CONTINGENT OF FOREIGN POLICE ARRIVES IN HAITI AS KENYA-LED FORCE PREPARES TO FACE GANGS
Doctors volunteer group Medics for Kenya said its staff at the Jamia Mosque/Crescent hospital had been hit by teargas, and that it condemned in “the strongest terms possible violence meted out on our volunteer medical teams”.
Reuters reporters saw army vehicles on the streets after the government deployed the military to help police.
Elsewhere, hundreds of protesters gathered in the port city of Mombasa and in the western city of Kisumu, local television footage showed, although those gatherings appeared peaceful.
“We are only coming here so that our voice can be heard, us as Gen Z, us as Kenyans, we are one,” said Berryl Nelima in Mombasa. “So the police should stop killing us, we are just peaceful protesters, we are unarmed.”
The protest movement has no formal leadership structure and has largely responded to messages, banners and slogans on social media. Posts on Thursday suggested protest supporters were divided on how far to carry the demonstrations.
“Let’s not be foolish as we fight for a better Kenya,” Boniface Mwangi, a prominent social justice activist, said in an Instagram post.
He voiced support for demonstrations on Thursday but opposed calls to invade State House, the president’s formal offices and residence, a move that he said could spur more violence and be used to justify a crackdown.
KENYAN PROTESTERS VOW TO CONTINUE DEMONSTRATIONS AFTER VIOLENT CLASHES LEAVE 23 DEAD
While some protest supporters said they would not demonstrate on Thursday as the finance bill had been scrapped, others pledged to press on, saying only Ruto’s resignation would satisfy them.
“Right now is not about just the finance bill but about #RutoMustGo,” political activist and protester Davis Tafari told Reuters in a text message. “We have to make sure that Ruto and his MPs have resigned and fresh elections are held … We occupy State House for dignity and justice.”
Eli Owuor, 34, from Kibera, an informal settlement and a traditional hotbed of protests, also said he was prepared to join a push on to State House.
“We may just need to visit Zakayo today in his house to prove that after parliament we can occupy State House,” he said, using a nickname protesters have given to Ruto that references a biblical tax collector viewed as corrupt.
DIALOGUE, AUSTERITY ARE NEXT STEPS
In a speech on Wednesday, Ruto defended his push to raise taxes on items such as bread, cooking oil and diapers, saying it was justified by the need to cut Kenya’s high debt, which has made borrowing difficult and squeezed the currency.
But he acknowledged that the public had overwhelmingly rejected the finance bill. He said he would now start a dialogue with Kenyan youth and work on austerity measures, beginning with cuts to the budget of the presidency.
The International Monetary Fund, which has been urging the government to cut its deficit to obtain more funding, said it was closely monitoring the situation in Kenya.
“We are deeply concerned about the tragic events in Kenya in recent days,” the IMF said in a statement. “Our main goal in supporting Kenya is to help it overcome the difficult economic challenges it faces and improve its economic prospects and the well-being of its people.”
Ratings agency Moody’s said the shift in focus to cutting spending rather than boosting revenue will complicate the disbursement of future IMF funding and slow the pace of fiscal consolidation.
Analysts at JPMorgan said they had maintained their forecasts for a deficit of 4.5% of GDP in FY2024/2025, but acknowledged the government and IMF targets could be revised in light of recent developments.
They said the Central Bank of Kenya was unlikely to begin cutting rates until the final quarter of this year.
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Argentina’s lower house votes on Javier Milei’s package of economic reforms. How will this affect ordinary Argentinians?
Argentina’s lower legislative house is set to approve President Javier Milei’s package of economic reforms. Despite signs of economic improvement on the macro level, the consequences of Milei’s spending cuts for the average person have been profound. How have everyday Argentinians been faring under Javier Milei?
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