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As protests over the killing of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini by the Islamic Republic’s morality police rack the country, Iran’s policymakers are considering replacing the unpopular police grouping with surveillance equipment. Such technologies, produced in China, are capable of picking individuals out of crowds, even at night, and can be used by the regime to build cases against protesters or women who break the dress code. 

Iran has hosted at least eight internationally sanctioned Chinese companies that sell technology used to spy on citizens for the past 19 years, according to public records. As early as 2003, Chinese purveyors of sophisticated surveillance technologies founded companies and obtained licenses to trade in Iran, documents from the official business registry Rooznameh Rasmi show. 

Tehran Bureau has uncovered six companies that sold face recognition technology, video surveillance, crowd surveillance, and phone call and text message monitoring to Iranian state security forces. Beyond one-off technology sales, these companies are training the Iranian government to adopt the Chinese government’s concept of “safe cities,” where millions of citizens live under constant surveillance and risk having their freedom of movement restricted by losing “social credits” for minor acts of civil disobedience. Many of these companies have been targeted by international sanctions for enabling mass surveillance and contributing to ethnic cleansing and widespread human rights abuses in China. They remain active in Iran.

1. Hangzhou Hikvision Digital Technology Co., Ltd.

Hikvision has been active in Iran since 1387 (2008), according to a Rooznameh Rasmi registration document, and was active through the year 1400 (2021). 

The company’s products include police surveillance systems as well as baby monitors, and are available in more than 190 countries, according to MIT Technology Review. Hikvision has close links with the Chinese government and has helped build China’s elaborate surveillance system in Xinjiang province. 

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Hikvision camera’s license plate recognition capability

2. Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd.

Chinese tech giant Huawei and its subsidiary, mobile phone producer Honor Device have been active in Iran since 1385 (2006) and has posted activities this year, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents. 

This company was one of 59 “Chinese military complex”-linked entities sanctioned by the U.S. Treasury based on an executive order signed by President Joe Biden last year. Previously, U.S. prosecutors issued an indictment against Huawei in which they accused the company of installing surveillance equipment in Iran to aid in arresting dissidents. 

Huawei is also actively pursuing expansion into other global markets, particularly states in Africa and Asia that are “middle-income” and “illiberal,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank. Officials in Iran have openly embraced Huawei’s “safe city” concept, which involves the mass installation of face recognition and other AI technologies in public spaces. Many Iranian cities including Tehran and Kashan hosted conferences dedicated to “safe city” implementation in 2017, according to Fars news agency and the Kashan news portal.

3. ZTE

The Shenzhen-based company ZTE has been active in Iran since 1382 (2003), Rooznameh Rasmi documents show.

This company has been cited in numerous U.S. Treasury sanctions designations for conspiring to violate or violating sanctions on Iran. It reportedly sold the Telecommunication Co of Iran (TCI), Iran’s largest telecommunications provider, a powerful surveillance system capable of monitoring landline, mobile, and internet communications.

Most recently, the U.S. Commerce Department accused ZTE of using Far East Cable Factory as a middleman to sell products to Iran, according to reports by Reuters and the Wall Street Journal. Far East Cable Factory has been present in Iran since 1388 (2010), according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents.

4. Zhejiang Dahua Technology Co., Ltd

Dahua’s promotional videos for the Iranian market feature camera systems that identify shoppers in grocery stores and pedestrians outside elementary schools, then send their data to a “security center” for processing, all in the name of a “safer society and smarter living.” Dahua, a Chinese producer of video surveillance technologies, was implicated in Uighur oppression in China and was blacklisted by the U.S. Department of Commerce in 2019. In response, company representatives issued statements calling its blacklisting an indication of the strength of its technology.

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Dahua features

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Dahua face recognition

Dahua first entered the Iranian market in 2013 via a company called Ilya Tejarat Bam Tehran Trade Co.,  which trademarked Dahua’s name and logo, according to Rooznameh Rasmi.

Months later, Dahua itself started registering trademarks in the country, the documents further show. Dahua has been consistently active in the Iranian market since then and even has an official website. According to its Instagram account, as well as this video,  it participated in the International Police Safety and Security (IPAS) expo in Tehran in 2019.

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Dahua IPAS expo 2019

According to its Facebook page, Dahua also sells security cameras by a German company called Zisher in Iran. One of Dahua’s products, the Hunter series camera, offers “Smart Tracking, Perimeter Protection, Video Metadata, Face Recognition and many other intelligent functions.”

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Dahua Iran’s advert for German Zisher camera

A company called Sepahan Electronic Sina which was founded in 2017 also claims to be Dahua’s official rep in Iran. One of its founders, Ali Karimi claimed in an interview on the security-focused website Iran Alarm that Sepahan Electronic has been working as Dahua’s rep since 2013. 

5. Tiandy

Tiandy is a Chinese producer of video surveillance technology. According to Rooznameh Rasmi documents, Tiandy has been active in Iran from 1385 (2007) until at least 1395 (2016) through an affiliate. Many of its products contain Intel chips, whose sale in Iran is prohibited by United States sanctions. On a now archived version of its Iran website, Tiandy lists the IRGC among its clients.

On a post on its Instagram, Tiandy Iran says its cameras can “detect crowds”, “loitering”, “running” and “count people”. It also participated in the  2018 International Police Safety and Security expo in Tehran, according to its Instagram account.

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One of the  noteworthy features of Tiandy cameras is the Starlight technology, which according to its website makes it possible to “capture a colorful and bright picture” in the dark and“ can help to capture moving objects in almost totally dark scene[s] with illumination as low as 0.0004Lux, which is revolutionary and edge-cutting i[n] this industry.”

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Tiandy Super Starlight can capture a colorful and bright images in dark scenes. Video shows footage shot with a Tiandy Camera in Ukraine.

This would enable the police and military to film protesters in the dark and obtain a clear image of them, enabling their prosecution.The crowd detection feature also enables authorities to swiftly disperse any crowd before it becomes unmanageable.

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This official promo video shows the zoom ability of Tiandy cameras.

While Tiandy itself does not appear in public records, documents show that its official representative Faragostar Electronic Iranian (Tiandy Iran), which openly uses the Tiandy logo in its marketing activities, has been active since 1385 (2007).  It became its Chinese parent company’s official rep in the Middle East. 

There are only a handful of public records available for Faragostar, but its establishment documents show its founding board members were Farzad Nouri  (CEO) and Babak Mir-Saeed Qazi, who has ties to the IRGC, Government, banks, and bonyads like EIKO (Setad) and Astan Qods Razavi, according to an online version of his resume.

6. Tencent

In China, Tencent, along with the online marketplace Alibaba “are among the firms that assist authorities in hunting down criminal suspects, silencing dissent and creating surveillance cities,” according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Incorporated in the Cayman Islands, Tencent has been present in Iran since 1387 (2008), according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents.

Tencent has close ties to the Chinese government and reportedly “received funding from the Ministry of State Security early on in its foundation,” according to a 2020 Foreign Policy magazine report.

The company has trademarked several things in Iran including the messaging app/ surveillance tool Wechat, which was widely in use in Iran in 2009 (1388) and allowed users to “hang out” with other WeChat users in their area by shaking their mobile phone device. Tencent also owns the fintech app WeChat Pay and the instant messaging service QQ, also caught spying on users in 2021. 

Its subsidiaries Iflix Sdn Bhd (Malaysia), Miniclip SA (Switzerland), and Supercell Oy (Finland) are also currently active in Iran, according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents:

7. Zhejiang Uniview Technologies Co., Ltd.,

Uniview is China’s third-largest video surveillance manufacturer. According to IPVM, which tracks information on video surveillance worldwide, Uniview is yet another manufacturer of “racist software used for tracking Uyghurs” by using face recognition software specifically calibrated to target this ethnic minority.

This company has been active in Iran since1395 (2017 ), according to Rooznameh Rasmi documents.

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Uniview Starlight capability

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Uniview camera’s zoom ability demonstrated capturing the Plasco Building fire

8. FiberHome Telecommunication Technologies Co., Ltd

This Chinese company  was placed on the US Commerce Department Entity list for being “complicit” in alleged human rights abuses.  It has been active in Iran since at least 1387 (2008), according to Rooznameh Rasmi. 

According to Rooznameh Rasmi, Fiberhome has patented numerous technologies in Iran since 2016, including fiberoptic cable, VPN protocol, and ethernet SFP  electrical module and  method for realizing synchronization of Ethernet. All these technologies are involved in affecting internet-based data transfers and could potentially be used to monitor these processes.

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In February, the Statistical Center of Iran published a report on the societal and cultural situation in the country which stated that, in the summer of 2020, a total of 9,058 marriages involving girls between the ages of 10 and 14 were registered. According to the report, the marriage of girls in this age range increased compared to the previous year.

According to Iranian law, the minimum age of marriage for girls is 13, while for boys it is 15, but marriage for girls younger than 13 is not completely prohibited and is subject to the permission of the girl’s guardian or the courts. The women’s group in the 10th Majles (2016–20) proposed a complete ban on the marriage of girls under the age of 13 and an increase in the minimum age for marriage, but their proposal was rejected by the Judiciary Commission for religious reasons and because it was deemed to be “imitating the designs of the West.”

Experts on Iranian human rights issues emphasize that the physical and psychological harm caused to girls when they are married at such a young age can do irreparable damage, ranging from maternal mortality to dropping out of education, staying trapped in a cycle of poverty, depression, and suicide.

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Karami said he considers the motorcycle force to be the most important of the special units, proudly observing that “in November 2019, each of our motorcyclists in cities such as Tehran, Shiraz, and Isfahan sometimes traveled up to 270 kilometers in a day and night; that is, they had a point of conflict and then went on to another point.”

Karami also claimed that the special police units carry only non-lethal weapons, including hoses, paintballs, and rifles that fire soft plastic bullets. Although the January 2018 protests over rampant inflation involved more than 160 Iranian cities, Iranian authorities claimed the death toll was only 25 people.  In the week-long November 2019 protests, sparked by a hike in gas prices, the estimated death toll ranged from 300 (Amnesty International) to 1,500 (Reuters), many of whom were shot in the head or heart.

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The new round of Haft Tappeh strikes and protests, now entering its third week, has seen workers holding demonstrations in front of various government buildings around Shush, including the state and county offices, with protesters saying they will not desist until all of their demands are met.

According to ISNA, after the seizure of Haft Tappeh from Asadbeigi—announced in May and executed this August—the government handed over its administration to the Nishkar Development Company. The workers don’t see the new management as a positive development, especially since trust in government promises is as low as ever. For example, there has been no progress on the fulfillment of delayed and unpaid wages, a central demand of the recent protests.

Another of the workers’ demands was that fired colleagues be allowed to return to work. Over the years of Haft Tappeh labor protests, a number of workers, including Esmail Bakhshi, Mohammad Khanifar, Salar Bizhani, and Iman Akhzari, were imprisoned and are still barred from returning to their jobs. In their protest on Thursday, the Haft Tappeh workers reemphasized their commitment to the return of their coworkers.

Additionally, they demanded an end to the persecution of Farzaneh Zilabi, the Haft Tappeh workers’ attorney who has fought to have their demands addressed, with a protest in front of the Shush justice department. Zilabi has been sentenced to a year in prison and forbidden from leaving the country for two years for the crimes of “propaganda against the regime” and “acts against national security.”

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Qoliyan was arrested during the Haft Tappeh sugar mill workers’ strike in 2018 and sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. According to HRANA, she reported to prison in July 2020, and in August of this year was granted leave due to a COVID-19 infection. During her leave, Qoliyan exposed the degrading conditions women face in Bushehr Prison, where she had served most of her sentence to date.

Attorney Amir Raisian tweeted on October 14 that Qoliyan contacted her family after two days of silence and said that she had been taken from Ahvaz to Bushehr and then from Bushehr to block 209 of Tehran’s Evin Prison. The government appears to be building a new case against Qoliyan for her revelation of the conditions faced by incarcerated women in Bushehr.

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According to reports posted to Twitter, the prisoners were transferred to a different block of the prison after the attacks, but a political prisoner, Hossein Qashqaei, who remained in the block where the attacks occurred, said in a telephone conversation that his life was still being threatened. Twitter users say that the prisoners’ assailant, identified as Gholam Bozorgar, remains in the same block as Qashqaei. Hossein Qashqaei is an online and social media activist who was arrested last year and sentenced to two years’ imprisonment by the revolutionary court on the charge of “propaganda against the regime.”

This isn’t the first time that Iranian political prisoners have been subjected to attack by inmates convicted of violent crimes. In 2019, 21-year-old Alireza Shirmohammad Ali was stabbed to death by two violent prisoners. Shirmohammad Ali had been sentenced to eight years for insulting Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and his predecessor, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic Republic.

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A report published a month ago by Iran’s Ministry of Cooperatives, Labor, and Social Welfare noted the decline  in Iranian meat consumption, which it said had fallen by 50 percent in the 2010s. According to the report, the per capita monthly meat consumption of the lowest income decile fell from 2.6 kilograms in 2011 to 1.2 kilograms by 2019. 

The precipitous fall in red meat consumption is a clear consequence of Iranians’ waning household incomes, which declined more than 22 percent over the 2010s. While many families have been substituting eggs for red meat as a source of protein, ILNA reports that last summer the price of eggs went up tenfold, such that a single egg now costs 2,000 tomans—about .50 USD; by comparison, the average price in the United States as of August was less than .15 USD.

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According to reports on social media, the Haft Tappeh workers, who began their strike last week, will continue striking and reiterating their demands that the company’s privatization be reversed and returned to government ownership so axed employees will be rehired and back wages paid. The Haft Tappeh workers gathered to protest in front of the Shush city hall on Monday.

On Monday, private sector coal miners in Kerman also continued demonstrations that they kicked off last week to protest their low wages compared to coal miners working in the public sector. The news site Eghtesad 24 has reported that police attacked the protesters with water cannons, which resulted in injuries to a child and a woman from one of the miners’ families.

Teacher protests in cities across the country have also continued into this week. Radio Farda reports that teachers in Isfahan, Rasht, Shiraz, Bandar Abbas, Ahvaz, and Tehran, where protesters gathered across from the Majles building, have been protesting low wages.

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Historically, the rate of increase in food prices one year has been matched by comparable salary hikes the following year, but for two years in a row food prices have soared far beyond wage increases. According to the report, “this catastrophe has created the biggest drop in household purchasing power.”

Citing data from the Statistical Center of Iran, the report says that the rate of inflation in food prices in the three lowest income deciles reached 60 percent in August, which is without precedent over the last four decades. At the same time last year, food inflation in the lower income deciles was 21 percent.

The president of the union of grocery stores and meat markets, Saeed Derakhshani, said in an interview with the Entekhab website that “the rise in the price of consumer goods and the decrease in purchasing power has caused the rate of sales in our union to fall to its lowest, and that’s why 15 to 20 percent of the grocery stores and supermarkets in Iran have closed their doors.”

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In Tehran, meanwhile, a group of teachers known as the Green Report have been protesting the lack of new hires every day for the past two weeks outside the Ministry of Education. Although the members of the group have passed the national teaching exams, they have yet to be assigned to work.

ILNA reports that, on September 26, workers from the Mobin Road and Mining Company gathered in the city of Babak outside of their workplace and the municipal police headquarters in protest of poor working conditions and the arrests of four fellow workers. A day earlier, current and retired employees of Homa Airlines gathered in front of the Ministry of Roads to protest low salaries.

Last week, workers from the Fajr Jam refinery in the south of Fars Province, the South Pars/North Dome Gas-Condensate field, Pars Ghodrat Contracting in Kangan, and the Steam Company in Bushehr went on strike again—two months after they last walked out—due to contractors breaking their promises to improve working conditions and raise salaries.

HRANA reports that at least 15 worker protests have taken place around the country in the past two weeks. Aside from the ongoing Green Report campaign described above, these protests have included employees of Tehran’s Azadi Stadium and the Kut Abdollah municipality, Bandar Emam petrochemical workers, a group of laid-off workers from Haft Tapeh Sugarcane Cultivation Complex, and a retired teachers’ protest in Shiraz.

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Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader of the Islamic Republic, banned the import of coronavirus vaccines produced in the US and UK in January 2021. While according to official statistics, COVID-19 has claimed the lives of over 100,000 Iranians, Health Ministry officials say that the real death toll is likely two to three times the official figure.

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Social media users have been reporting that Salehi was arrested on September 13. The Independent’s Persian edition describes 21 state security agents converging upon the musician’s house to carry out the arrest. Salehi, who is from Isfahan, is known for songs criticizing economic inequality, the Islamic Republic’s domestic and foreign policies, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and especially the 25-year cooperation agreement Iran signed earlier this year with China. In one sons, Salehi points the finger at the Islamic Republic’s political elites and those who lobby for them outside of the country. Some social media users have been saying that Salehi is currently in solitary confinement and that he will stay there for a month. The hashtag #Free Toumaj has been circulating on Twitter and other platforms.

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Shargh’s requests for comment from Shifa Pharmed, the Pasteur Institute—co-creator of the Pasturecovac vaccine, whose production has been even more minimal—and Actoverco—local producer of Russian-formulated Sputnik vaccine doses, all apparently destined for foreign distribution—were met with silence. A physician identified as Dr. Simin Kazemi told Shargh, “Issues such as the production of multiple domestic vaccines, often of uncertain efficacy . . . the struggle over the importation of vaccines by certain factions, and entrusting the importation of vaccines to private corporations, all of that sent a message to society that the health system here is not prioritizing public health, and that those in charge of society and its health are looking out for their own personal and factional interests over those of the people.”

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