The alleged crime happened in the office. A few women and a few men had gathered for a photo. They were young, a tech company team. They smiled at the camera. If they lived in another country, they could have put the photo on Linkedin. Her contacts would have given her thumbs up for so much good cheer at work, so much pride in the company.
In any case, the group picture would not have been a case for law enforcement. In another country.
Presumably, the young employees of Digikala, the Iranian Amazon, thought they were safe when they took the photo. After all, there has been a bit more freedom in Iran recently, especially when it comes to the headscarf requirement. The regime cracked down on protests last fall after 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died at the hands of police, arrested for allegedly wearing the scarf too loosely.
The Islamic Republic then experienced the largest protests in its history. The regime killed hundreds of people. On the other hand, things gave way a bit, the vice police disappeared from the streets. So the organization that was responsible for Mahsa Amini’s death. Women who walked through Tehran unveiled no longer had to fear arrest.
In the photo from the Digikala office, the women were not wearing a scarf. They worked for one of the country’s most important e-commerce companies. Well-educated women who no longer wanted to submit to a regime that believed it could impose a dress code on its people. But also a regime that knows that its power is in danger if it gives up the headscarf.
A few weeks ago, the police arrived at Digikala. It didn’t shut down the entire company, after all, Digikala reports 40 million users a month, which is almost half the population. But the officials sent a signal. They used Digikala for a message to the Iranian economy, to society. They shut down one of the company’s Tehran offices. Only because the employees had shown their hair.
You are nowhere safe from our control, that is to say. Don’t think you’re free just because you work for a hip, successful company. One that is also important to the regime. After all, she writes one of the few success stories in the country. One that pleases the theocrats in power: Iran doesn’t need a US company like Amazon, it has its own online department store. A local start-up founded by two brothers, thriving against all odds.
Despite the falling rial – the country’s inflation is in the double digits – and despite the sanctions, especially the US. They are still preventing Iran from trading with the Gulf States, for example. The Europeans also tightened their sanctions last year, given how brutal the regime was against its citizens on the streets.
The regime should be aware that nothing threatens its power more than a little freedom
The case of Digikala shows how the mullahs apparently imagine the future of the country. Just not a little more liberal, as they promised when they faced the anger of the citizens in the autumn. The men of the regime should be aware that nothing threatens their power more than a little freedom. Authoritarian regimes around the world know this, they falter as soon as they give their people a little more space, as soon as fear no longer suffocates everything. At least when people are dissatisfied, for example for economic reasons.
In the Iranian case, the headscarf is so crucial because the rulers themselves have made it a symbol of their control. As long as you moved across the country and didn’t see an unveiled woman, nobody questioned authority. Things had been different for a few months now, on the streets, in offices like Digikala’s. It must have been a latent nuisance for the clergy, no Islamic republic without concealment.
The Digikala case tells of the fact that life under this regime and a successful market economy are almost mutually exclusive. In this climate, how are women, and not only them, supposed to think freely once they enter the office where they are paid for their thoughts? How are companies supposed to rely on legal certainty in a country that is closing branches due to a lack of headscarves?
Even former ministers have criticized the actions against Digikala. The current men at the top, however, seem convinced that they must enforce their rules if they want to preserve the Islamic Republic. So her power. If necessary, not only against humanity, but also against economic reason.
Autocrats tend to be paranoid, especially when a revolution has just been averted. Now they are busy perfecting their authoritarian rule in Iran. You are nowhere safe, nowhere unobserved, this is the message the regime is sending now. The vice police have been back for a while, although they were reportedly disbanded months ago. She appears in civilian clothes, often it is women officers who set about enforcing the dress code.
The moral guardians once warned, according to the regime. After that, unveiled women face arrest. Like in old times.
Even the car is no longer a private place
In addition, the Iranian security authorities are working to continuously monitor their people. Its role model is China, which is where most of the technology comes from. Cameras from the Chinese company Tiandy hang on every street corner in Tehran. Thanks to them and facial recognition software, the regime always knows where a citizen feels too free.
Iranian women report that even their car is no longer a private place. As soon as they got out of the car, they received a text message on their cell phone warning them to cover up.
The images of the surveillance cameras should be allowed to be used in court in the future, at least that’s what a draft law in parliament wants. The new law will also ban private photos of women without a headscarf, like the one from Digikala’s office. Bans on leaving the country threaten high fines or up to 15 years in prison.
Iranian activists recently told ARD that cameras from Bosch, which the German company supplied to Iran until 2018, are also being used. Bosch says the devices are not suitable for face recognition. But the dissidents in Tehran see things differently. The Bosch cameras, they say, along with software bought from Denmark, could very well be used for identification.
Then Iranian women, such as the employees of Digikala, would have to defend themselves in court against the recordings of a German camera. But that’s another economic story.