A US Senator has described Iran’s violations of human rights as outrageous, calling on his fellow lawmakers to be more aggressive about addressing the issue. 

Maryland’s Democratic Senator Ben Cardin told Iran International, “The current regime in Iran has so many different challenges, but one that we sometimes do not recognize as well as we should is its violations of internationally-established human rights standards. That's outrageous, just outrageous.”

Answering a question about Iran threatening its people against sending videos to New York-based anti-hijab activist Masih Alinejad with up to 10 years in jail, he said that “We have to speak out, and we need to do what we can to protect the human rights of people who are courageous standing up for just basic international rights.”

Iran’s Headquarters For Enjoining Right And Forbidding Evil, tasked with promoting the clerical regime’s interpretation of Islamic laws, said on July 23 that any cooperation and sharing videos with Alinejad will be considered a violation of Article 508 of the Islamic Republic’s Penal Code, and can result in one to ten years imprisonment.

Cardin called on the Senate to spotlight such human rights violations, saying, “We (in the Senate) already have a sanctions regime against human rights violations. That's been deployed in Iran. We just have to be very aggressive and use the tools that are at our disposal.”

Iran’s security organs have also started arresting women who participated in a nationwide civil disobedience campaign July 12 against hijab.

Following a call by women’s rights activists – including Alinejad -- for civil disobedience with the hashtag of ‘No2Hijab’ social media exploded with dozens of videos and photos of women unveiling in public.