Iran is again taking tougher action against violations by women of strict Islamic dress codes, with the start on Saturday of a new drive on observance of the regulations in the Gulf state.

Controls were tightened nationwide and women disregarding the requirement to wear a headscarf in public remain guilty of a criminal offence, the Iranian news agency Tasnim reported on Telegram, citing a police commander.

Since the mass protests led by women in the autumn of 2022, Iran’s notorious morality police have been less strict, partly because they experienced more resistance from the population.

Instead, security agencies stepped up video surveillance of offences. For example, cars belonging to women who were repeatedly caught driving without a headscarf were impounded.

Authorities also tracked offences online, including photos of women without headscarves posted on Instagram. Shops and restaurants whose customers disregarded the dress code were ordered to close.

Since 2022, more and more Iranian women have been ignoring the dress code, while religious hardliners have tried to fight the growing defiance.

A new bill passed by parliament provides for draconian punishments but has not yet come into force.

In the coming weeks, a revised version is to be resubmitted to Iran’s so-called Guardian Council, an arch-conservative, 12-member supervisory body.

The mass protests were triggered by the death of the young Iranian Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini after her arrest by police because of an allegedly ill-fitting headscarf.

An expert United Nations commission concluded that physical violence after the arrest led to her death.

The UN General Assembly has adopted a resolution accusing the Taliban of violating the human rights of Afghan women and girls, failing to establish a representative government and plunging the country into “dire economic, humanitarian and social conditions”.

The resolution also pointed to persistent violence in the country since the Taliban takeover 15 months ago and the presence of terrorist groups such as al-Qaida and the so-called Islamic State and their affiliates as well as the presence of “foreign terrorist fighters”.

Germany’s UN ambassador, Antje Leendertse, had hoped the 193-member General Assembly would approve the German-facilitated resolution by consensus.

But a vote was requested and it was adopted 116-0, with 10 countries abstaining — Russia, China, Belarus, Burundi, North Korea, Ethiopia, Guinea, Nicaragua, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. Some 67 countries did not vote.

General Assembly resolutions are not legally binding, unlike Security Council resolutions, but they do reflect world opinion.

The adoption came the same day the Taliban, which already banned girls from secondary school, stopped women from using gyms and parks.

Before the vote, Ms Leendertse told the assembly that since the Taliban came to power in August 2021 Afghanistan has seen “a massive economic contraction and humanitarian crisis” which has left half the population facing “critical levels of food insecurity”.

“We expect a harsh winter and levels of needs that we have not seen in the last decades with little prospect for economic recovery and reduction of poverty,” she said.

Introducing the resolution, Ms Leendertse told the assembly the Taliban control the country but are not living up to their responsibility toward meeting the needs of the Afghan people.

“The resolution is a clear call to respect, protect and fulfil human rights, develop inclusive governance and fight terrorism,” she said.

“It contains a clear message that without that, there cannot be business as usual and no pathway toward recognition.”

The resolution pledges continued UN support for the Afghan people “in order to rebuild a stable, secure and economically self-sufficient state, free of terrorism, narcotics, transnational organised crime, including trafficking in persons, and corruption, and to strengthen the foundations of a constitutional democracy as a responsible member of the international community”.

It calls for improved access for aid workers and recognises the need to help address Afghanistan’s economic challenges, including efforts to restore the banking and financial systems and enabling Central Bank assets – held mainly in the US – to be used to help the Afghan people.

The resolution expresses deep concern at human rights abuses against women and girls, including sexual violence, and calls on the Taliban to promote “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of women in all aspects of Afghan society”.

It condemns all attacks, reprisals and violence against journalists and media workers and calls for their perpetrators to be brought to justice.

The resolution reaffirms the assembly’s expectation that the Taliban will live up to its commitments to allow the safe departure of all Afghans and foreign nationals that want to leave the country.

Turkey has withdrawn from a European treaty protecting women from violence that it was the first to sign 10 years ago and that bears the name of its largest city.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s decree annulling Turkey’s ratification of the Istanbul Convention is a blow to women’s rights advocates, who say the agreement is crucial to combating domestic violence.

The Council of Europe’s secretary general, Marija Pejcinovic Buric, called the decision “devastating”.

“This move is a huge setback to these efforts and all the more deplorable because it compromises the protection of women in Turkey, across Europe and beyond,” she said.

The Istanbul Convention states that men and women have equal rights and obliges state authorities to take steps to prevent gender-based violence against women, protect victims and prosecute perpetrators.

Some officials from Mr Erdogan’s Islam-oriented party have advocated a review of the agreement, arguing it encourages divorce and undermines the traditional family, which they say are contrary to the country’s conservative values.

Critics also claim the treaty promotes homosexuality through the use of categories like gender, sexual orientation and gender identity. They see that as a threat to Turkish families.

Hate speech has been on the rise in Turkey, including the interior minister who described LGBT people as “perverts” in a tweet. Mr Erdogan has rejected their existence altogether.

Women’s groups and their allies who have been protesting to keep the convention intact immediately called for demonstrations across the country under the slogan “Withdraw the decision, implement the treaty”. They said their years-long struggle would not be erased in one night.

Rights groups say violence against and killing of women is on the rise in Turkey but the interior minister called that a “complete lie”.

A total of 77 women have been killed since the start of the year, according to the We Will Stop Femicide Platform. Some 409 women were killed in 2020, with dozens found dead under suspicious circumstances, according to the group.

Advocacy group Women’s Coalition Turkey said the withdrawal from a human rights agreement was a first in Turkey. “It is clear that this decision will further encourage the murderers of women, harassers, rapists,” their statement said.

Turkey’s minister for family, labour and social policies tweeted that women’s rights are still protected by Turkish laws and the judicial system is “dynamic and strong enough” to enact new regulations. Zehra Zumrut Selcuk also tweeted the government would continue to have “zero tolerance” for violence against women.

Mr Erdogan has repeatedly stressed the “holiness” of the family and called on women to have three children. His communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said the government’s motto was “Powerful Families, Powerful Society”.

Many women suffer physical or sexual violence at the hands of their husbands or partners, but up-to-date official statistics are unavailable. The Istanbul Convention requires states to collect data.

Saudi Arabia’s public prosecutor is seeking the death penalty against five human rights activists from the kingdom’s Eastern Province currently on trial in a secretive terrorism court, groups including Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

Among the detainees is Israa al-Ghomgham, whom Saudi activists said was the first woman to possibly face the death penalty for rights-related work. Charges against her include incitement to protest and providing moral support to rioters.

“Any execution is appalling, but seeking the death penalty for activists like Israa al-Ghomgham, who are not even accused of violent behaviour, is monstrous,” Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at HRW, said in a statement on Wednesday.

ALQST, a London-based Saudi rights group, reported the decision involving Ghomgham’s case earlier this week.

A government communications office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Activists said the trial was ongoing, and denied social media reports that the detainees had already been executed.

Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy where public protests and political parties are banned, has enacted some high-profile social and economic reforms in recent years under powerful young Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

They have, however, been accompanied by a crackdown on dissent, with dozens of clerics, intellectuals and activists arrested in the past year, including women who had campaigned for the right to drive in the deeply conservative Muslim country.

A roundup of senior royals, ministers and businessmen last November on charges of corruption sent shockwaves through the kingdom, stunning allies and foreign investors. Most of those detainees were released after reaching undisclosed financial settlements with the government.

Ghomgham is a prominent Shi’ite Muslim activist who documented mass demonstrations in the Eastern Province starting in 2011. She was arrested from her home in December 2015 along with her husband.

Most of the country’s Shi’ite minority lives in the oil-producing Eastern Province and some have complained that their religious ceremonies are banned or interfered with by Sunni authorities, and that they lack opportunities for work and education. The government has denied the charges.

Saudi Arabia has previously executed Shi’ite activists on what rights groups called politically-motivated charges. It views protests among Shi’ites in the context of tensions with Shi’ite power and regional rival Iran, which it has accused of fomenting the unrest.

The authorities have carried out security operations against suspected Shi’ite militants in the Eastern Province, which has seen unrest and occasional armed attacks for years.

A Japanese medical school deliberately cut women’s entrance test scores for several years, a panel of lawyers hired by the school to investigate the issue said on Tuesday, calling it a “very serious” instance of discrimination.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made a priority of creating a society “where women can shine”, but women in Japan still face an uphill battle in employment and face hurdles returning to work after childbirth, which contributes to a falling birthrate.

The alterations were uncovered in an internal investigation of a graft accusation this spring regarding the entrance exam for Tokyo Medical University, sparking protests and widespread anger following media reports last week.

Lawyers investigating bribery accusations in the admission of the son of a senior education ministry official said they concluded that his score and that of several other men were boosted “unfairly” – some by as much as 49 points.

They also concluded that scores were manipulated to give men more points than women and thus hold down the number of women admitted.

“This incident is really regrettable – by deceptive recruitment procedures, they sought to delude the test takers, their families, school officials and society as a whole,” lawyer Kenji Nakai told a news conference.

“Factors suggesting very serious discrimination against women was also part of it,” added Nakai, one of the external lawyers hired by the university to investigate the incident.

The investigation showed the scores of men – including those reappearing after failing once or twice – were raised a certain number of points. Those of all women, and men who had failed the test at least three times, were not, however.

The lawyers said they did not know how many women had been affected, but it appeared that women’s test scores had been affected going back at least a decade.

Medical school authorities have called a news conference for 5 p.m. No immediate comment was available from the government or the education ministry official who figures in the case.

Entrance exam discrimination against women was “absolutely unacceptable”, Education Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters last week, however.

Reports of the incident appeared at the start of August, setting off a furore in Japan, spurring women to recount their own experiences of discrimination on social media with the hashtag, “It’s okay to be angry about sexism.”

Some referred to the potential costs exacted in a rapidly ageing society.

“I’m 29 and will probably never get married,” said one poster.

“Women are pitied if they don’t, but Japanese women who are married and working and have kids end up sleeping less than anybody in the world. To now hear that even our skills are suppressed makes me shake with rage.”

Another said,”I ignored my parents, who said women don’t belong in academia, and got into the best university in Japan. But in job interviews I’m told ‘If you were a man, we’d hire you right away.’

“My enemy wasn’t my parents, but all society itself.”

Around 1,300 Danes marched through Copenhagen on Wednesday in protest at a new ban on the wearing of face veils in public, accusing the government of infringing on women’s right to dress as they choose.

Denmark’s parliament enacted the ban in May, joining France and some other European Union countries to uphold what some politicians say are secular and democratic values.

The protesters, many wearing the niqab veil or the all-enveloping, body-length burqa, marched from the central, left-wing district of Norrebro to Bellahoj police station on the outskirts of the capital. They formed a human chain around the station and then marched back to Norrebro before dispersing.

Demonstrators, often with children in tow, chanted “no racists in our streets” and “my life, my choice” during the three-hour rally. No incidents were reported.

The marchers included non-niqab-wearing Muslim women and non-Muslim Danes with faces covered.

“We need to send a signal to the government that we will not bow to discrimination and a law that specifically targets a religious minority,” Sabina, 21, a niqab-garbed student, told Reuters, asking that her full name not be used.

She is one of about 150-200 Muslim women – 0.1 percent of those in the country – who daily wear either the niqab or burqa garments covering the face or the entire body. Muslims account for around 5 per cent of Denmark’s 5.7 million population.

Under the law, police will be able to instruct women to remove their veils or order them to leave public areas. Justice Minister Soren Pape Poulsen said officers would fine them and tell them to go home.

Fines will range from 1,000 Danish crowns (121.87 pounds) for a first offence to 10,000 crowns for a fourth.

DISCRIMINATORY, CRITICS SAY

Despite its generic wording, the legislation is being widely interpreted as discriminating against Denmark’s Muslims and violating women’s right to freedom of expression and religion.

Critics, noting the tiny number of Muslim women in Denmark who actually wear a niqab, regard the law as largely a sop to increased anti-immigrant sentiment in the Nordic country.

“If the intention of this law was to protect women’s rights, it fails abjectly,” said Fotis Filippou, deputy Europe director of human rights group Amnesty International. “Instead, the law criminalises women for their choice of clothing – making a mockery of the freedoms Denmark purports to uphold.”

Police said none of the veiled protesters would be penalised since certain uses of face veils, such as to exercise freedom of speech as part of a peaceful protest, are exempt from the law.

The justice ministry explained that the ban would focus on women forced by their families to wear veils, though it has been faulted for vagueness in stipulating who would fall foul of it.

Danish Police Union chief Claus Oxfeldt said he would have preferred more comprehensive guidance on how to enforce the ban.

“We need as thorough guidance as possible so we don’t end up in situations where (police officers) don’t 100 per cent know how to act,” he said.

As an example, he was unsure whether Asian tourists wearing anti-pollution masks would be covered by the ban.

France – with the largest Muslim community in the EU – as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and the German state of Bavaria, have all imposed some curbs on face veils in public.

France’s controversial 2011 ban added to a broader sense of alienation felt by many Muslims and some evidence surfaced that it encouraged assaults in the street on women wearing still legal headscarves as well.

Women in Saudi Arabia need not wear headcover or the black abaya – the loose-fitting, full-length robes symbolic of Islamic piety – as long as their attire is “decent and respectful”, the kingdom’s reform-minded crown prince said.

With the ascent to power of young Prince Mohammad bin Salman, the kingdom has seen an expansion in women’s rights including a decision to allow women to attend mixed public sporting events and the right to drive cars from this summer.

The changes have been hailed as proof of a new progressive trend towards modernisation in the deeply conservative Muslim kingdom, although the gender-segregated nation continues to be criticized for its continued constraints on women.

“The laws are very clear and stipulated in the laws of sharia (Islamic law): that women wear decent, respectful clothing, like men,” Prince Mohammed said in an interview with CBS television aired late on Sunday.

“This, however, does not particularly specify a black abaya or a black head cover. The decision is entirely left for women to decide what type of decent and respectful attire she chooses to wear.”

A senior cleric said last month that women should dress modestly, but this did not necessitate wearing the abaya.

It remains unclear if these statements signal a change in the enforcement of women’s dress code in the kingdom. Saudi Arabia has no written legal code to go with the texts making up sharia, and police and judiciary have long enforced a strict dress code requiring Saudi women to wear abayas and in many cases to cover their hair and faces.

But the kingdom has witnessed a cautious new climate of social freedoms with the rise of the 32-year-old crown prince to power after decades of elderly rulers.

Saudi women have started wearing more colourful abayas in recent years, the light blues and pinks in stark contrast with the traditional black. Open abayas over long skirts or jeans are also becoming more common in some parts of the country.

On March 8, a group of women in the Saudi city of Jeddah marked International Women’s Day by exercising one of their newly acquired freedoms: the right to go for a jog, paying no heed to bemused onlookers.

However, activists have blasted the country’s continued guardianship system requiring a male family member to grant permission for a woman to study abroad, travel and other activities.

Last week, a U.N. rights watchdog called on Saudi Arabia to end discriminatory practices against women including male guardianship, and give them full access to justice.

Another woman came forward on Saturday (October 22) to accuse Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump of inappropriate conduct.

Jessica Drake, an adult film industry actor and director, told reporters at a news conference in Los Angeles that Trump grabbed her and kissed without asking, and then offered her money and the use of his private jet if she would spend the evening with him.

“Donald called. He asked me to return to his suite and have dinner with him…I declined. Donald then asked me: ‘What do you want. How much?’ I told him that I couldn’t because I had to return to L.A. for work. I said that as an excuse because I didn’t want him to continue asking me and I didn’t want to be with him.” She told the briefing that she later received another call offering her $10,000 and the use of Trump’s private jet if she would accept his invitation.

Drake said the encounter occurred at a golf tournament in Lake Tahoe ten years ago. She said she is coming forward now to show her support for the other women who have accused the New York businessman of inappropriate conduct. She added that Trump’s actions showed his character as that of “uncontrollable misogyny, entitlements and to being a sexual assault apologist.”

At least 10 women accused Trump of making unwanted sexual advances, including groping them or kissing them, between the early 1980s and 2007. Trump has denied all of the accusations.

Three women arrested in connection with a car loaded with gas cylinders found in a side road near Notre Dame cathedral had been planning an attack on a Paris railway station, the French interior ministry said.

“An alert has been issued to all stations but they had planned to attack the Gare de Lyon on Thursday,” a ministry official said on Friday after the arrests overnight.

The Gare de Lyon station is in the southeast of the capital, less than 3 kilometres from the cathedral which marks the centre.

The official also said the youngest of the three women, a 19 year-old whose father was the owner of the car and who was already suspected by police of wanting to go and fight for Islamic State in Syria, had written a letter pledging allegiance to the militant Islamist group.

The discovery on Saturday night of the Peugeot 607 laden with seven gas cylinders, six of them full, triggered a terrorism investigation and revived fears about further attacks in a country where Islamist militants have killed more than 230 people since January, 2015.

Scores of religiously radicalised people of French and other nationalities are in Syria and Iraq fighting for Islamic State. Many of those involved in recent attacks in France have either taken part in the fighting or had plans to.

France is among the countries bombing Islamic State strongholds, and the group has urged supporters to launch more attacks on French soil.

One of the women stabbed a police officer during her arrest before being shot and wounded, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said late on Thursday. Other officials said it was the teenager who attacked the officer.

TV footage showed a policeman leaving the scene of the arrests on the outskirts of Paris carrying a large knife.

Police sources said no detonator had been found in the car, though the vehicle also contained three jerry cans of diesel fuel.

When it was found in the early hours of Sunday morning the car had no registration plates and was left with its hazard lights flashing.

“These three women aged 39, 23 and 19 had been radicalised, were fanatics and were in all likelihood preparing an imminent, violent act,” Cazeneuve said in a televised statement. They bring to seven the number of people detained since Tuesday.

The arrests took place in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, some 30 km (20 miles) south-east of Paris.

The car’s owner was taken into custody earlier this week but later released. He had gone to police on Sunday to report that his daughter had disappeared with his car, officials said.