They were planning to participate in a cycling event in the north-western city of Marivan when police told them a new government directive had barred women riding bicycles in public.
The opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran said officers ordered them to sign written pledges vowing not to repeat the “unlawful violation” and took several women who protested into custody.
Female cyclists have long been a subject of controversy in the country, where they risk being punished for flouting modesty laws imposing strict dress codes in public. Official signs appeared in May saying “bicycle riding for women is prohibited” in public walkways and police chiefs have previously warned that women caught cycling would be prosecuted.
Independent continues: It is illegal for women to go out in public without wearing headscarf or “modest” clothing in the country, where thousands of undercover agents and morality police patrol the streets to check for violations.
“With each passing day the mullahs’ regime is further infringing on the basic rights of women which they had fought hard to obtain,” she said.
“Hopes for an improvement of women's rights in Iran which some had advocated at the start of Rouhani’s tenure as President are a mirage.”
In a report issued last week, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said the human rights situation in Iran had worsened in many respects despite the President’s pledges to improve freedoms.
It cited laws going through the Iranian parliament, drafted by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameni that would limit access to birth control and force women into having unsafe clandestine abortions.
One bill being debated proposes discrimination against unmarried female job applicants and makes divorce more difficult, even in abusive relationships.
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Earlier during an interview in June 2016, Sara Qomi, the team’s captain had criticized the club’s authorities. Subsequently, the club’s general director, Reza'iyan announced that the team is going to be dissolved. The decision was officially announced on July 29, 2016.
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Hassan Azari Bejandi was arrested on charges of financing terrorism and money laundering through an organization that he heads. Azari has been linked to five Kosovo Shiite organization with ties to Iran.
The arrest of Bejandi comes as Kosovo authorities are cracking down on foreign-funded Islamic organizations operating within its borders, which the government says are radicalizing youths. Iranian charities began operating in Kosovo following the end of the war there in 1999. The charities, which built schools and mosques, “also spread anti-Western and anti-Semitic propaganda, and are seen to be tied to Tehran’s long-standing effort to export its Islamic Revolution,”
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recruited by Iranian regime to go fighting alongside Assad forces or militia groups in Syria, according to a New York Times article, and most of the recruits are said to be immigrants looking for work. Buses full of workers are crossing the Afghan-Iranian border every day and while many flee Afghanistan in search of work, some make the journey in order to volunteer for the Syrian regime and benefit from one advantage: They are less likely to be deported back to Afghanistan.Iranian regime has been one of the main backers of Assad’s regime since the start of the Syrian civil war five years ago. Among the recruits are also men as old as 50.
According to the NY Times article, Khadija, a woman whose son had joined Afghan brigades fighting for the Syrian government, claimed that he had been pulled into the vicious conflict for the same reasons most of the young men from the community had decided to go: “He could not find work.” With their trips to Syria arranged by the Iranian army, the Afghan fighters are dispatched to battlefronts such as Aleppo and Homs, where according to Iranian state news media many young Afghans have been killed over the past year.
A video clip that surfaced on the Internet last year showed a number of fighters who said they were Afghans and captured by Syrian rebel fighters. BBC quoted many Afghan asylum seekers in Greece claiming that Iranian authorities were sending undocumented migrants to fight in Syria. In a special report, BBC quotes a 24-year-old Afghan who had spent two months fighting in Syria after being recruited and trained in a military camp in Iran. Thousands of Iranian regime's own revolutionary guards and veteran soldiers are also reported to have traveled to Syria to defend the Assad regime against rebel groups. Also Iranian regime deploys Zenabun Army to fight in Syria along side Assad which consists of Pakistanis.
