Iranian women to be prosecuted 'without mercy' for not wearing veils

Iran’s judiciary chief has threatened to prosecute "without mercy" women who appear in public unveiled as an increasing number of women defy the country's compulsory dress code.

Chief Justice Gholamhossein Mohseni Ejei’s warning, reported by Iranian media on Saturday, follows an Interior Ministry statement on Thursday that reaffirmed the government's intention to enforce the law requiring women to wear a headscarf, or hijab, in public.

“Unveiling is tantamount to enmity with [our] values,” Mr Ejei was quoted as saying by several news sites. Those “who commit such anomalous acts will be punished” and will be “prosecuted without mercy,” he said, without saying what the punishment entails.

Mr Ejei said law enforcement officers were “obliged to refer obvious crimes and any kind of abnormality that is against the religious law and occurs in public to judicial authorities”.

A growing number of Iranian women stopped wearing headscarves after nationwide protests broke out in September over the death in custody of a young woman detained for allegedly violating the hijab rule. Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old from Iran's Kurdish region, died days after being detained by morality police in Tehran.

The protests continued for months despite a violent by crackdown by government forces in which nearly 500 protesters were killed, according to estimates by Iranian rights groups. Thousands more were arrested, with at least four executed on charges related to the protests.

Despite the risk of arrest for defying the obligatory dress code, women are widely seen unveiled in malls, restaurants, shops and streets around the country. Videos of unveiled women resisting the morality police have flooded social media.

Under laws imposed after Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, women are obliged to cover their hair and wear long, loose-fitting clothes. Violators have faced public rebuke, fines or arrest.

The Interior Ministry statement on Thursday said there would be no “retreat or tolerance” on the issue, describing the veil as “one of the civilisational foundations of the Iranian nation” and “one of the practical principles of the Islamic Republic”.

It urged ordinary citizens to confront unveiled women. Such directives have in the past emboldened hardliners to attack women with impunity if they considered them to be violating the dress code.

Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.

Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.

“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.

“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.

Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.

From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.

Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.

BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.

Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.

Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.

“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.

Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.

“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.

“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”

The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”

Iranian women to be prosecuted 'without mercy' for not wearing veils

Judiciary chief's warning comes as increasing number of women defy mandatory dress code