Iran and Tyranny: Drones to Enforce the Hijab
Murad Makhmudov, Noriko Watanabe, and Lee Jay Walker
Modern Tokyo Times
Thousands of Iranians have been brutally killed by the state apparatus in recent weeks inside the Islamic Republic of Iran. Countless more protesters languish in prison, facing torture and the ever-present threat of execution under draconian laws designed to extinguish dissent. Yet for Iranian women, the suffering is not episodic — it is systemic, relentless, and generational. Year after year, their freedoms are crushed beneath the weight of clerical absolutism.
Today, the ruling Shia clerics and political elites have descended into technological tyranny, openly deploying drones to police women’s bodies and enforce compulsory hijab. This is not governance — it is surveillance-driven repression. It is fear weaponized. It is power preserved through intimidation in a land increasingly soaked in the blood of anti-government martyrs.
Modern Tokyo Times recently said: “In recent weeks, the Islamic Republic of Iran has been shaken by a vast wave of protests. Yet despite the scale of unrest — and an estimated 4,000 to 5,000 deaths — the ruling elites appear poised, once again, to survive through sheer brutality. From East to West — from predominantly Muslim nations to China — the response has been a mixture of empty words, diplomatic evasions, and deafening silence.”
Last year, a United Nations report confirmed what Iranians already know in their bones: the state is harnessing modern technology to tighten its grip on society. Drones, facial recognition software, and a government-backed reporting app are now being used to hunt down women who defy hijab laws.
The UN revealed that the Nazer app is actively deployed to spy on women — even inside hospitals — turning everyday spaces into extensions of the security state.
Voice of America last year responded to the UN report by stating: “According to the report, authorities are using drones in Tehran and the southern part of the country to monitor hijab compliance in public areas, as well as new facial recognition software said to have been installed last year at the entrance of Tehran’s Amirkabir University.”
Meanwhile, new hijab laws introduced in 2025 are deliberately engineered to deepen terror across Iranian society.
UN News stated: “Violations can now result in extended prison sentences of up to 15 years and substantially increased fines. Most concerning to human rights experts is the provision allowing judges to impose the death penalty under the charge of ‘corruption on earth’…”
The same report warned: “The experts said that the enforcement will likely escalate violence against women and girls while further embedding systematic gender-based discrimination.”
Iranian authorities have grown increasingly paranoid since the mass uprisings of 2022 — protests ignited by the brutal killing of Mahsa Amini.
This tyrannical Shia Islamic state seeks total control. It murdered Mahsa Amini (22), Sarina Esmailzadeh (16), Hadis Najafi (22), Nika Shakarami (16), and countless others — not only for how they dressed, but because they dared to believe in freedom, dignity, and hope.
Now, in 2026, the regime has fused law with surveillance technology to perfect its machinery of oppression.
A previous UN report exposed the horrors endured by detainees: “Some of the detainees faced sexual violence, including rape, rape with an object, threats of rape, electrocution to the genitalia, forced nudity, groping, touching and other forms of sexual violence.”
This is the true face of the Islamic Republic.
Yet even amid this darkness, the courage of Iran’s women endures. It is hoped that the legacy of Mahsa Amini — and of every brave Iranian woman who stood against tyranny — will one day rise victorious over this brutal theocracy. Their resistance is a living testament that no regime, however violent, can permanently silence the human yearning for liberty despite the outside world ignoring their plight.
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