Videos show Iranian women being snatched from the streets by other women under the cover of war with Israel
In Tehran’s Revolution Square, two women clad in long black burqas approach another woman, dressed in jeans, a long-sleeved shirt and a hijab, or head scarf.
She tries to walk away, but one of the women in burqas grabs her by her sleeve and pulls her back, yanking her onto the ground. She is surrounded, wrapped in a blanket and bundled into a white van.
The scene is from one of many videos that have been circulating widely on social media in recent weeks, showing incidents of the latest crackdown by Iran’s so-called morality police.
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Source: Iran International
But this time, another enforcement group is more visibly working alongside the regime – and they are also women.
Sky News has analysed dozens of videos showing incidents of authorities’ renewed campaign targeting women for not properly wearing their hijab in accordance with the regime’s strict sharia law.
“Before this new wave of attacks started, I was planning to get rid of some of my longer clothes, because I don’t feel comfortable in them,” said Leila, an Iranian woman in her 20s living in Tehran. She spoke to Sky News on condition of anonymity.
“Now, I find myself wearing those even though I hate them, because I think I wouldn’t feel safe going out of my house wearing something that I could potentially lose my life over, or that I could get arrested for.”
‘Ambassadors of Kindness’
What’s notable about this recent spate of arrests is the increased presence of women in burqas, considered by Iranian leaders as the most modest form of dress, working with authorities.
They are part of a new enforcement group, dubbed by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as “Ambassadors of Kindness”, who are helping enforce harsh regulations and silence dissent, one expert said.
Some young Iranians are calling them “bats”.
Leila was recently in the street when she spotted the police and stopped to cover her hair. She was then approached by a woman wearing a full hijab who told her she should “be afraid of God, not the police”.
“The truth is that when someone is wearing full hijab I am afraid that she might be with the police,” she said.
It’s not the first time the IRGC has employed women to help them. But Hadi Ghaemi, director of New York-based Centre for Human Rights in Iran (CHRI), says they’ve increased in number, as have the physical presence of morality police, white vans and police cars, which are used in the arrests of women on the street.
“They’re not armed, but they’re meant to go intimidate women by politely and kindly warning them. Then if the woman doesn’t listen, they call over security forces,” said Mr Ghaemi.
“What’s really scary is the way [authorities] are recommending citizens turn on citizens.”
War at home
As Iran launched its first ever attack on Israel, it intensified this less-noticed war at home.
Three days before it flew missiles into Israel, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran, said that women in the Islamic Republic must obey the dress code, regardless of their beliefs.
Then on Saturday 13 April, Tehran’s police chief Abbas Ali Mohammadian said people who ignored prior warnings faced legal action.
Read the latest on the Israel-Hamas war here
Not long after his statement was released, videos showing white police vans on the streets of cities across Iran went viral.
Iranian authorities say their Nour (Persian for ‘light’) campaign targets businesses and individuals who defy hijab law and responds to demands from devout citizens who are angry about the growing number of unveiled women in public.
“The level of brutality is very, very high right now,” said Masih Alinejad, an Iranian American journalist and activist.
“This time they are more emboldened. You can see it on their faces and see it from the huge number of them.”
In one video analysed by Sky News, at least six officers wearing yellow vests appear to be arresting one woman outside a train station in Tehran. She resists but fails to break free, and is ushered into a white van.
In another video posted the same day authorities announced their campaign, footage shows a cluster of white police cars, vans, and men in uniform in Tehran’s Valiasr Square.
Sky News was able to verify the precise location of the videos and the date each clip first appeared online.
Women and girls arrested
Morality police vans had largely vanished from the streets of Iran since last year, when widespread protests erupted across the country in the wake of the death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish-Iranian woman who died while being detained for improperly wearing her hijab.
Read more: Who was Mahsa Amini?
Mahsa Amini. Pic: Center for Human Rights in Iran
Police now appear to be back out in force, as a draconian ‘hijab and chastity’ bill is also currently making its way through the country’s parliament. One group of students reported new facial recognition software installed at a university dormitory.
But while street protests have died down, resistance to the regime’s hardline policies has not.
Iranian authorities released footage purporting to show members of the public being rude to, and lashing out at, morality police.
![A video from Iranian authorities, with the subtitle: 'The beating of the oppressed and powerful agents of Faraja [law enforcement] by the female beasts of the Women, Life, Freedom movement'](https://e3.365dm.com/24/04/768x432/skynews-iran-women_6537677.jpg?20240429173946)
A video from Iranian authorities, with the subtitle: ‘The beating of the oppressed and powerful agents of Faraja [law enforcement] by the female beasts of the Women, Life, Freedom movement.’
But this has backfired, said Ms Alinejad: “Now that video is going viral because people are so proud of the young women.”
Mina, another Iranian woman, had her car confiscated for three weeks last year because of her hijab. But she remains defiant.
Read more: Death sentence imposed on Iranian rapper Toomaj Salehi
“We fight not only to have the right to choose coverage, but to have the right to choose a lifestyle,” she said.
Another video showed the arrest of a woman for allegedly not wearing her hijab in Haft Tir metro station in Tehran.
But a crowd surrounded her, chanting “free her” and calling the police “dishonoured.” Not long after the noise began, the police released the woman.
The ‘war against women’
As these videos went viral, so did talk about Iran’s “war on women”. Since 12 April there has been a steady rise in the number of times the Farsi for ‘mandatory hijab’ (حجاب اجباری) was used across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
On 11 April the phrase was used 585 times – but by 22 April it was mentioned in almost 10,000 posts, according to social listening platform Talkwalker.
The hashtag #IRGCTerrorists was also repeatedly used to accompany posts about discrimination against women. This peaked on 16 April, when more than 234,000 posts used this hashtag.
Farsi for ‘War against women’ (جنگ_علیه_زنان) then surged the following day and was used almost 30,000 times. Some 42% of these posts came from Iran itself.
What is next for the women of Iran?
“The anger among Iranians is much stronger and heavier than before,” Mina said.
“I don’t think they are going to give up that fight. The flame of revolution is still burning in Iran.”
Some women, she said, are willing to risk imprisonment: “They would rather get arrested but not live in humiliation and not live under these barbaric officers walking in the streets.”
Additional reporting by John Sparks, International correspondent, Sam Doak, OSINT producer
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open-source information. Through multimedia storytelling, we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.
Pope Francis died little more than half an hour after being taken ill, Vatican sources have told Sky News.
Pope Francis woke at 6am on Monday, and was fine for at least an hour, sources said, as they revealed details of the pontiff’s final moments.
Around 7am, the Vatican’s medical unit received an emergency call from his Casa Santa Marta apartment.
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Where will Pope Francis be buried?
Pope latest – Prince William to attend funeral
An urgent transfer to the Gemelli hospital, where he was treated for pneumonia earlier this year, was among the options considered.
A request for an urgent escort from the Vatican was received by Rome police after 7am, sources there said, but, given how quickly his condition worsened, it was cancelled by Vatican officials before 7.35am.
Francis died at the age of 88, a day after making his final public appearance at St Peter’s Square, where he greeted crowds on Easter Sunday, one of the most important days of the Christian calendar.
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First images of pope’s casket
The Vatican said he died from a stroke that led to a coma and irreversible heart failure.
He is currently lying in state in the Santa Marta Domus in a private viewing for Vatican residents and the papal household.
Francis will be laid to rest Saturday, the Vatican announced on Tuesday, after lying in state for three days in St Peter’s Basilica, where the faithful are expected to flock to pay their respects.
The funeral will take place outside, in the square in front of St Peter’s Basilica, and will start with a procession led by a priest carrying a cross, followed by the coffin and ordained clergy.
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‘Many were in tears, I was in tears’
Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, the dean of the College of Cardinals, will lead the service. Nine days of mourning begin afterwards.
Unlike his predecessors, Francis will be buried in the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (St Mary Major), as per his final burial wishes, announced on Monday.
The basilica is dedicated to Mary, the Mother of God, and is where Francis traditionally went to pray before and after foreign trips.
He will be the first pope to be buried outside the Vatican in more than a century.
In another change from tradition, he will be buried in a simple wooden casket, forgoing the centuries-old practice of burying the late pope in three interlocking caskets made of cypress, lead, and oak.
Prince William will attend the funeral on behalf of King Charles, Kensington Palace has said.
Cardinals will gather in a conclave to choose his successor afterwards.
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Francis, the first Jesuit and Latin American pontiff, had suffered from a chronic lung disease and had part of a lung removed as a young man.
Health issues plagued him throughout his later life, and he was admitted to Gemelli hospital in Rome on 14 February for a respiratory crisis that developed into double pneumonia. He stayed at the hospital for 38 days before being released.
World
Kristi Noem: Top Trump official’s handbag – containing $3,000 in cash and security pass – stolen in burger restaurant
A bag belonging to the US Homeland Security Secretary was stolen on Sunday night – containing thousands of dollars in cash and an ID card that gives access to secure agency buildings.
Kristi Noem was eating at a Washington DC burger restaurant with family when a man in a face covering sat near her table and stole her purse, according to two people familiar with the theft.
Officials confirmed the theft to Sky News’ US partner NBC News on Monday.
The cabinet secretary was carrying $3,000 (£2,243) in cash because “her entire family was in town including her children and grandchildren”, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told NBC.
“She was using the withdrawal to treat her family to dinner, activities and Easter gifts.”
The purse contained her ID card. Reuters file pic
Just before 8pm, a man wearing an N-95 mask walked into the restaurant and up a few stairs to where Ms Noem was eating dinner.
He sat near her table and moved his chair close to hers before sliding her purse toward him with his foot, according to surveillance footage viewed by law enforcement, the sources said.
Within minutes, the man had Ms Noem’s purse under his jacket and walked out of the restaurant.
At least two on-duty members of the US Secret Service were in the restaurant – between Ms Noem and the front doors – according to a source who witnessed the meal.
They said the restaurant wasn’t very busy at the time.
The purse also contained credit cards, blank cheques, her passport, driver’s licence and a set of keys.
It’s unclear whether Ms Noem was specifically targeted – and investigators are looking into whether the man knew who the purse belonged to.
When asked about the incident, Ms Noem said: “I don’t think I can comment on it yet. It’s not resolved yet.”
She said the Secret Service was aware but said she hadn’t spoken to agency personnel about what happened.
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Ms Noem is a vocal supporter of Donald Trump’s policies of deporting undocumented immigrants and fortifying the US-Mexico border to slow illegal migration.
World
Starmer and Zelenskyy discuss ending Russia’s ‘brutal war’ – as Putin says says he is open to bilateral talks on longer ceasefire
Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke about ending Russia’s “brutal war” on Ukraine in their latest phone call on Easter Monday, as Vladimir Putin said he was open to bilateral talks.
The prime minister and Ukrainian president spoke on Monday afternoon, when Sir Keir “reiterated his iron-clad support for Ukraine“.
A Downing Street spokesperson added that the prime minister “said that the UK supports Ukraine’s calls for Russia to commit to a full ceasefire and that now is the time for Putin to show he is serious about ending his brutal war”.
“They discussed the latest developments on the Coalition of the Willing, and looked forward to further progress towards a just and lasting peace,” the spokesperson added.
Mr Zelenskyy later said on social media that he had a “good and detailed conversation” with the prime minister, and added Ukrainian officials will be in London for talks on ending the war with Russia on Wednesday.
“We are ready to move forward as constructively as possible, just as we have done before, to achieve an unconditional ceasefire, followed by the establishment of a real and lasting peace,” he added.
The Ukrainian president added that the 30-hour Easter truce, which both Kyiv and Moscow accuse the other of violating, showed that Russia “are prolonging the war”.
It comes as Mr Putin proposed bilateral talks with Ukraine on a longer ceasefire, which would mark the first time Russia held such talks since a failed peace deal soon after the invasion in 2022.
Speaking to a state TV reporter, the Russian president said: “We always have a positive attitude towards a truce, which is why we came up with such an initiative (the Easter truce), especially since we are talking about the bright Easter days.”
When asked about Mr Zelenskyy’s calls to extend the 30-hour ceasefire into a 30-day pause on civilian targets, he added: “This is all a subject for careful study, perhaps even bilaterally. We do not rule this out.”
The Ukrainian president said on Sunday evening that the Russian army had “violated Putin’s ceasefire more than 2,000 times” during the day, and accused Russia of “failing” to “uphold its own promise of a ceasefire”.
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From Saturday: Why Putin offered an Easter truce?
It also comes after Donald Trump has said he hopes Russia and Ukraine “will make a deal this week,” after he and his secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that the US will walk away from efforts to broker a peace deal unless there are clear signs of progress soon.
The US president said on his Truth Social platform that both countries would “start to do big business” with the US after ending the war.
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Last month, Ukraine accepted Mr Trump’s proposal for a 30-day truce, but Mr Putin refused to back a full 30-day ceasefire, saying crucial issues of verification had not been sorted out.
He then said he would agree not to target Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. However, both sides have accused each other of breaking the moratorium on attacks on energy targets and at sea.
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