Iran set to freeze bank accounts of women who refuse to wear a hijab | Hacker News Reader

Iran set to freeze bank accounts of women who refuse to wear a hijab

cointelegraph.com

69 pointswalterbell116 comments

Like how we freeze bank accounts of protesting truck drivers and "right wing extremists"? We should be blushing, as imitation is a form of flattery. Or are we going to pretend to be shocked and appalled here, because it's only okay when we do it?

The issue isn't the punishment, it's the crime.

There are many crimes for which freezing ones bank account is a pretty good idea. On the list of crimes that this is an inappropriate punishment would be: refusing to wear a piece of fabric on your head for the arbitrary reason that some book says it should be so.

I want the punishments to fit the crime. I'm okay with murders going to jail. I'm not okay with jay walkers going to jail.

I'm sorry to discuss meta-HN and scores, but judging from the upvotes it clearly is about punishment (not about the crime, this subject is pretty clear to everyone here).

Crimes are relative and sometimes very localized.

> refusing to wear a piece of fabric on your head for the arbitrary reason that some book says it should be so.

What abouts (not) wearing pants and underwear infront of children?

> I want the punishments to fit the crime. I'm okay with murders going to jail. I'm not okay with jay walkers going to jail.

How do you know someone actually commited murder? Shouldn't there be a process, with investigations, lawyers, proof, judges, juries, etc. first?

Being naked should not be a crime anywhere.

Most crimes are a crime "because some book says it should be" that book is typically a law book, but still.

Then wait until you hear how Canada handled peaceful protestors

This was basically the first thing I though too. It will be interesting to see if the Canadian government, or any of the media says anything about it. It looks like Iran is using us as a model for how to deal with protestors

The Canadian government was very quick to criticize China's response to the recent protests against lockdowns. Truly breathtaking how these same people were calling for financial and physical consequences for anyone who opposed lockdowns and vaccinations less than a year ago.

Yes, the west abuses bank freezes.

It’s still seems crazy to lose money because your hair is destabilizing to society.

Don't you have to understand a culture before you understand where its laws fit? Doesn't a culture determine its laws?

Yes, they inform the laws.

It’s okay for other cultures to think that it seems crazy to punish someone for showing hair.

Unfortunately, that idea is never evenly applied.

I'm guessing you are referring to Canada and the American-funded Canadian truck driver protests?

Except the "freedom convoy" people were committing real crimes. Blocking an international bridge is very illegal.

> Except the "freedom convoy" people were committing real crimes. Blocking an international bridge is very illegal.

I'm Canadian

The thing that really scared the shit out of all my peers wasn't punishing people, it was the locking bank accounts and taking money from people with absolutely no due process at all.

No trial, no charges, just government doesn't like you, you're money is now gone.

This is a line that had never been crossed before and instantly hurt Canada's reputation on the world stage. I had friends from the Bahamas, not FTX related:) and Europe reach out on the day after it went public to ask what the hell is going on with Canada.

It was a huge black eye for Canada.

I know alot of people who immediately sent money out of the country, to the US, crypto, to foreign realestate.

I'm still proudly Canadian, but the harm our government did by taking money with absolutely no judicial oversite can not be overstated.

We used to be a country of laws, the government just set the precedent that they no longer need courts.

I still live here, have assets here and pay taxes here, but governments bypassing the courts and taking peoples assets with no oversite is a line that just should never have happened.

And to be clear, I wasn't happy about the convoy and I do think that blocking border crossing was something that shouldn't have happened, but the police should have dealt with it, not the government by reaching into peoples accounts and taking money from them without a court order.

Not wearing a hijab is very illegal.

Some laws are stupid. Believing that hair is a destabilizing force on society and should be punished to the point of disallowing you from interacting with society is generally considered stupid by modern people. Many people don't think harming your wallet for attempting to block commerce is stupid. Much of the point of modern law is to keep modern commerce going, so of course if you try and block that, you will see government push back. Just look at all the push back rail workers got from the government for daring to use their importance to ask for a better deal.

Well you are clearly not a relativist. What else should we do to change their culture? Look at all the recent changes that have been imposed upon the Middle East by the West. How on earth can a Westerner claim moral superiority in that context? We kill innocent civilians in drone strikes, but at least we don't freeze the accounts of people who don't wear head coverings, right?

Not a fair comparison. Iranian women never agreed to the hijab law and truckers were perfectly fine with the law against blocking bridges, until they weren't.

Neither one of your assertions is true.

Most Iranian women (and Muslim women in general) support the hijab law. Not all do of course, but to claim that women are opposed to this is not true. And of course there are those who support wearing a hijab, but oppose the penalty.

And what makes you think truckers were OK with a law banning protests that block a bridge? I suspect truckers have never been OK with a law limiting their protests, it just never came up before.

Because when the protesters weren't the truckers, the truckers would be the ones being blocked by the protests. So, yeah, I strongly suspect that the truckers were fine with the law banning protests that blocked the bridge, until they were themselves the protesters.

So Iranian women voted in the govt who implemented the hijab law?

Most Muslim countries do not have a hijab law

The elites want CBDCs to control the masses for reasons like this. It's trivial to crush the people when you control their money.

Please explain how CBDCs give governments power they don't currently have?

Paper money doesn't magically stop working because some bureaucrat has an axe to grind, or is corrupt. The government not currently having that power is exactly why power-hungry maniacs want CBDCs.

Let's say we had CBDCs and the party you don't like wins the 2024 elections. Instead of being able to go protest, now the POTUS declares an emergency and just turns off money for opposition groups, or at restaurants, hotels, and gas stations in an area.

Seems like a great way to invite tyranny.

Do you get paid in paper money that your employer doesn't report to the government? Because firstly, that's a crime, and you're risking serious consequences just to meet your definition of freedom, and secondly, very few people can do that (not everyone on earth can be a janitor), and thirdly, if everyone did it the government would crack down on it even harder.

So you need to establish that "paper money" is the alternative to CBDC and not, you know, what we have now, which is an almost fully-digital system which the government is free to interfere with in ANY way they see fit INCLUDING each and EVERY negative consequence of CBDC you envision.

This. It appears that only those of us who live in authoritarian countries have learnt this lesson.

Well this is shitty, but it's a huge step forward from beating people in the streets, so you have to respect that at least.

We wont physically hurt you but we'll end your ability to participate in the economy in any way & steal all your money does not seem like the upgrade you seem to be saying it is. Wont these people all starve?

The morality police was not some violent police force. They were a force who grab, detain, and deliver to another location. Actual punishment (even if rare) was never administered by them, but by a different unit.

People in the streets can atleast fight back... or run away and hide... with this now, what can you even do?

Reason #304968204352 why money and economies should not be controlled by central banks or governments.

Isn't this more likely to be Reason #1?

Probably right.

I'd like to get reporting on that subject from a reliable source not linked to cr&pto. Otherwise it sounds like pro-cr&pto FUD.

Best I can find is this:

https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-hijab-alternative-punishment-ja...

Thank you.

... which kinda shows why maybe governments worldwide shouldn't have normalized going after people's money as the first response to enforcing anything, and why building surveillance and control infrastructure for that isn't necessarily a hot idea.

Blame Canada

Yep!

Also, somehow, after two years of calling anyone protesting for basic rights (anti-lockdown protests) a covid denier, an idiot, grandma killer, etc. we've gone to "brave protesters" in china.

I'm sorry how is canada responsible for a despotic regime thinking a head scarf should be a legal requirement?

See this reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33900732

I’ve seen this show.

Iranians: What do you mean you've seen this? It's brand new!

Mods, is this thread hijacked? the quality of comments in here is exceptionally poor for HN.

My first thought reading that headline was to remember what they just did in Canada last year, so I don't think it's hijacking so much as people being indulgent.

But I guess all it takes to be 'hijacked' or 'brigaded' is someone links this to their friends in Discord or elsewhere. So maybe you're right.

Just a hot topic that's both politically charged and touches on crypto, HN's favorite topic to argue about. I doubt there's anything more to it than that.

Edit: okay, @fjweoijf and @joifw are suspiciously similar.

Agreed - it seems like HN got brigaded here.

I very much value a diverse discussion forum, and am happy to see “alt-right” viewpoints in this thread, but it’s very unusual to see those viewpoints expressed in a flood of low-effort posts. Something’s afoot.

There's not much effort needed. The comparison to Canada is obvious. This is completely new tactic for dictatorships. What else do you expect to be said?

At this point you either contort in various ways to fit the narrative or you stand by a consistent set of values.

To me personally, hypocrisy is the worst ideological crime. It's always possible to construct a narrative, the harder thing to do is realizing when your values collide with your 'interest' or political side and standing by your values instead of the easy choice of picking the narrative.

If your moral values only ever happened to be on your side, you don't have values, you have excuses.

Mods have successfully chilled any real conversation around issues like this. All you have left are people vaguely waving their hands at crypto.

US to follow in some way, not hijabs, but some other issue.

Not to blame the victim, but having all of your money in one jurisdiction is like putting all your eggs in one basket. This is why the federal government loves FATCA, as it makes the banking requirements so onerous for US citizens abroad that a foreign bank can only afford to bank a rich US citizen after compliance costs.

This is not an accident, and the fact the compliance cost far outweigh any tax benefit yet the burden remains make this crystal clear.

Edit: to all the people offended by this comment. Ponder why international banking is infeasible for the domestically banked and then question why that may be and whether the state of things may be for the benefit of governments to better control their populace. Thus you will understand this comment wasn't actually about impugning the common domestic bank account holder but to show some incentives that keep them locked in domestically. If you pointed out why international banking is infeasible then you finally got the point of my comment and perhaps some understanding of why some third world people may be desperate enough to use an evil pyramid scheme environmental wrecking shitcoins like bitcoin or ethereum etc.

Having the ability to keep money is multiple jurisdictions is something that an extremely small % of world's population could achieve.

First of all, you almost surely need to go to a trip abroad in person to create a bank account. (So, you need a passport, and money/time).

In many countries you can open a bank account only if you're a resident in the country (which creates a catch-22: can't open bank account without an address, can't rent without a bank account).

Stuff might be easier if you have a right citizenship (rules are relaxed e.g. in EU and you can open an account in some online banks abroad via a smartphone app), otherwise, good luck.

In any case, if you open an account in a bank, and you want to have any serious money there - more than $200 or so - you need to declare in which country you're a taxpayer, and your taxpayer number, and that country authorities get notified.

Also when declaring taxes in the country you're a primary resident, there's often a rule that you need to declare all your abroad accounts, equities etc. and if you don't and they find out, you can be fined $$$$$.

Most already banked people could realistically achieve it if KYC/AML and FATCA-like reporting requirements were eliminated. It is not technically infeasible, but as we both pointed out infeasible due to government imposed limitations.

If you can explain to me — without gaining citizenship in another country, or spending any large amount of money — how I can open a bank account in a country with good bank protections (meaning my account wont arbitrarily be closed/bank wont fail, or the denomination within wont become worthless), you would be right. But I don't think that is the reality we live in.

I think you could open an account in Revolut (Lithuania) fairly easily before the Russo-Ukrainian war (the 2022 escalation specifically). You can still sign up with them, but you need at least a work visa in the EU. Shameless plug: https://revolut.com/referral/aleksamc7!DEC1-22-VR-EE

You still can open account in Wise (UK / Belgium and other countries), though not from Iran I think (thanks to sanctions). It's not a bank but is an EMI and is regulated stricter than a bank. You can only order a card in handful of countries besides EU and the US, but for storing money it should OK. Shameless plug: https://ale.sh/r/wise

If you live in Iran though... good luck, you'll need it.

So, at the moment, you can't open a legit bank account.

Bitcoin allows you to open infinite free bank accounts and the contents are extremely hard to confiscate.

[redacted] fixes this

That's pretty much my point. It isn't technically infeasible but rather infeasible due to collusion of governments in the form of KYC/AML and other tyrannies against the populace.

This is valid but a half-point. I still have rather bitter memories of my brick-and-mortar bank slowly bleeding my checking account dry during a period of low income for 'failure to maintain a minimum balance.' Public overreach and private greed are two sides of the same coin, and addressing one without the other is a bit facile. The tyrannies you describe are often tolerated and sometimes engineered by economic incumbents who want to maintain their dominant position.

It's not that I think your view is wrong so much as incomplete.

A back-handed compliment is the closest I ever get to a real one on HN, so I'll take it.

You realize that this sounds woefully out of touch? Normal people don't have access to international banking which would be out of the reach of their government. Normal people living under authoritarian regimes absolutely don't have access to international banking, period.

That's not even getting into the fact that these people would also need to have enough money to justify moving it overseas. Or, that, if your government freezes your accounts, you're likely screwed in the near term, regardless of money you have overseas. What exactly is the plan to convert those hidden Swiss Francs into physical bills that you can spend at the market?

> desperate enough to use an evil pyramid scheme environmental wrecking shitcoins like bitcoin or ethereum

Your post is mostly okay, but you're wrong about this. Bitcoin and Ethereum are not any of that nonsense. If you truly believe that, you may have been brainwashed by the people that desperately want to ban them in some way or another, and to centralize everything resulting in the dangers you stated.

Satire

Thanks god

Time and time again it is proven that we need crypto, despite the various scandals that came out with it (and the scandals were mostly CEX).

Not your keys, not your coins.

Not your printers, not your money.

Not your server, not your numbers.

Crypto is not a solution to this issue.

Making money extremely difficult to confiscate is the solution. Bitcoin solves this.

I'm afraid you misunderstood the problem.

How many woman in Iran have bank accounts. It’s not like woman have full western working rights for woman. E.g: “Husbands have the right to prevent wives from working in particular occupations and some positions require the husband's written consent”

I don't know numbers, but I would think many - for example my partner who is Iranian lived and worked in Iran before emigrating and she certainly had a bank account. How else would she be paid? Iran has many problems, and I would love nothing more than the fall of the regime, but it's not as restrictive as you're suggesting, despite the morality police.

Not yet.

Before anyone starts a flame war, I want to remind you that HN guidelines require you to either respect other people's culture and religion or keep quiet.

>Before anyone starts a flame war, I want to remind you that HN guidelines require you to either respect other people's culture and religion or keep quiet.

It does not.

What you propose- either accepting or being quiet- is the least hackerly perspective I have ever heard. This is the most contrary to open society & open debate bit I've heard on HN in a long while and it deserves no respect & deserves clamboring as a threat to civil society. Booo!! Hackers debate & discuss, have opinions. We can appreciate cultures & diversity without agreeing to authoritarian enforced mandates, and we dont have to be quiet when we find behaviors & authority to be disgraceful & out of line.

Narrowing down to the topic level, from your gross discharacterization, he hijab specifically is controversial & I think many opinions are due. Even within Iran there is a huge & wide part of the society going on strike & which has been loudly protesting this & other legal impositions as gross & unbefitting. To say that this is the culture denies the population & oppressed any voice. That seems vulgar & inappropriate.

The legal imposition of the hijab is not an old culture. It legally began in April 1983. But it was broadly unenforced for a while until the creation of the morality police, for which this was a primary enforcement concern. This was not a longstanding bit of culture, to force everyone to behave this way.

Thank you for expressing exactly how I feel.

This entire comment is made up, just like the shit they’re forcing on these women.

Says the person whose been on HN for less than two months. Welcome! If you don't believe me, go ahead and say something reasonable about religion and see where it gets you.

I've said a bunch of reasonable things about religion, and it didn't get me banned. Occasionally downvoted, never flagged that I recall.

I suspect that the issue may be with your definition of "reasonable".

Can you point to where, because I don't see it in guidelines.

I have directly experienced censorship and harassment by @dang over excessively reasonable critiques of religion. I would link to it, but I've been warned that doing so can get me banned.

Here are the moderation replies to your account over the years:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32323859 (Aug 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32323840 (Aug 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32323721 (Aug 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29774080 (Jan 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24403195 (Sept 2020)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20032506 (May 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19237561 (Feb 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19228116 (Feb 2019)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17371586 (June 2018)

If you're going to make claims about moderation, it's good to supply links to readers can make up their own minds.

Thank you.

Not really, but the HN moderator might find the comment "boring". Usually it is loosely based on the guidelines, but sometimes it is just subjective. Much like the headscarf issues in the middle east.

After the disbanding of the morality police, they are about to find out what real brutality at the hands of the full police looks like.

This is what happens during a color revolution based on falsehood. Things become much worse.

What exactly is the point you are trying to make here? Any government with “Islamic” in the name is ulu-ul-amr and gets to kill people for opposing it? When Shias in Zia’s time didn’t want Zakat deducted from their bank accounts and marched in Islamabad would it have been halal to kill them in your book?

That's not at all what I am getting at.

I have learned to respect authority I dislike because the alternatives are far worse. And it seems this has proven true in case of Iraq with saddam, Egypt with mubarak, alqaeda vs isil, musharraf in Pakistan vs any other alternatives, Assad in Syria, etc.

The alternatives are always worse.

Edit: Whats ulu ul amr.

Alternatives may not be so black and white. Also, looking in the short term maybe it's like you said, but then? What about fighting for more freedom in the future, for the next generation? It's all about hope. See what seems to have happened in China, they vehemently protested, they fought police, but now covid restrictions seem to be relaxed.

China is one of the few nations where people have learned to protest with dignity. And so govt is also in tuned.

As for bringing about change, it has to be conversational first, then activist, then public protest. The ideas have to be baked in a wide variety of people and needs to elicit reactions of both sides. Then the activist phase kicks in where people most vocal get their say. Then protests can happen without people getting hurt.

https://en.wikishia.net/view/Ulu_l-Amr

Is this why the Iranians hate their religion along with the govt? Because they mix them up as one and the same?

Exactly. Although before Khomeini vilayat-e-faqih was a minority interpretation, most clerics were quietist.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com