Iran International:

Azadeh Shafiee

Ankle monitors once reserved for criminals in Iran are now imposed on activists, turning what is billed as an alternative to prison into a source of humiliation, financial strain and invisible confinement.

“These devices should be used on thieves and fraudsters, not for a teacher who simply demanded her union rights,” says one teacher and union activist.

She recounts how, in the silence of the night, the short beep of her device awakens her five-year-old daughter—a constant reminder that miles away, someone is watching. Barred from stepping more than a kilometer from her home, she must wear the virtual shackle at all times.

She is one of dozens of teachers, artists, students, writers, members of religious minorities and labor activists who, after months or years in prison, now serve the remainder of their sentences under electronic surveillance.

Their names have been withheld due to the likelihood of official retaliation for telling their stories.

The devices are fastened to the leg and tracked around the clock by Iran’s Prisons Organization. In theory, they modernize punishments and reduce prison costs. In practice, they are applied not only to financial, drug or theft offenders but increasingly to civil and political activists.

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