U.S. Should Blacklist German Manufacturer Bosch For Enabling Iran’s Violence Against Women

(New York, N.Y.) — An investigation by German broadcaster ARD exposed Iran's use of thousands of cameras from German manufacturer Bosch to monitor women’s adherence to the country’s compulsory hijab laws. Protestors hacked into Tehran’s surveillance network and uncovered the footage by Bosch cameras. Subsequently, Bosch admitted to the sale and confirmed that Iran purchased 8,000 cameras between 2016 and 2018.

Tehran’s compulsory hijab law has been in place since shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and enforcement was significantly intensified under Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi in 2022. Since then, women who refuse to comply have been barred from entering government offices, banks, and, most recently, from using public transit. Raisi has increased high-tech surveillance technologies from foreign vendors to aid patrols of the regime’s so-called morality police to monitor compliance. In September 2022, Mahsa Amini was arrested by the morality police for purportedly wearing a hijab improperly and later died of injuries sustained in their custody, sparking the Women, Life, Freedom revolution.

In December 2022, the U.S. blacklisted Chinese video surveillance company Tiandy Technologies for its business with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. Before the designation, Senator Marco Rubio raised concerns that Tiandy’s cameras and facial recognition technologies were used to identify and target anti-regime protestors. Later, Amnesty International reported that the IRGC had taken child protesters into custody “in the aftermath of protests” and used torture against them to extract forced “confessions.”  

The Biden administration’s move to blacklist Tiandy set a strong precedent for how entities aiding known human rights abusers in surveillance activities should be handled, and Bosch should be no exception.  

Bosch is just one example within a broader disconnect between Germany’s permissive policies toward commerce with Iran and its outward commitment to human rights. Although Germany expresses its commitment to safeguarding ‘inviolable and inalienable’ human rights worldwide as non-negotiable, the country remains Iran’s largest European trading partner by far. Germany’s hypocrisy is evident in its laissez-faire approach toward holding companies like Bosch accountable when they enable Tehran’s continued violence against and repression of women. Since 2016, UANI has written seven letters to Bosch and various Bosch subsidiaries seeking clarification on Iran business.  

To read UANI’s release, Germany’s Negotiable Human Rights Commitment, please click here. 

To read UANI’s resource, Iran’s War on Women, please click here. 

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