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25-04-2006, 17:20
Iran To Start Crackdown on Women’s “Bad Islamic Behaviour”.
By Safa Haeri-Delphine Minoui
Posted Saturday, April 22, 2006
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Paris, 22 Apr. (IPS) Iran will increase police patrols to enforce women's skirt lengths, proper head scarves and even curtail dog-walking during the summer.
"In our campaign, we will confront women showing their bare legs in short pants", said Tehran's police chief, Morteza Tala’i.
"In our campaign, we will confront women showing their bare legs in short pants", said Tehran's police chief, Morteza Tala’i.
"We are also going to combat women wearing skimpy headscarves, short and form-fitting coats, and the ones walking pets in parks and streets" he added.
Women who do not wear the veil can face 10 days to two months' imprisonment, or a fine.
200 hundred men and women police would roam streets in Tehran to preserve “social order, fighting “noise pollution, car owners who have placed excessive equipments on their vehicles, drug distributors and those assaulting women”, Tala’i told the conservatives-controlled “Fars” news agency.
"We are also going to combat women wearing skimpy headscarves or without socks, short and form-fitting coats, and the ones walking pets in parks and streets", he added.
Owning dogs is seen as unclean in Iran, and parading with them is off-limits.
Women who do not wear the veil can face 10 days to two months' imprisonment, or a fine.
Every woman in Iran, regardless of nationality or religion, must obey the country's dress code and cover her shape and hair outside the home.
Since the election of messianic President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, conservatives in Tehran's city council have pressured police to get tough.
Organised by the authorities, a hundred women in black chadors demonstrated last week in front of the Majles, or the Iranian Parliament against “bad Islamic dressed women” and called on the government to severely punish not only the “Westoxisied’ women but also the shops selling “bas islamic dresses”.
Hence, General Tala’i’s threat against all the importers, distributors and sellers of such “un-Islamic” dresses.
Cab agencies, known in Iran as “ajans”, were also said they would be responsible for their client’s dresses and in case Moral Patrols notices a cab transporting men or woman passenger in un-Islamic dress, their license would be confiscated, Tala’i warned.
“With the arrival of nice days, the scarves and the coats narrow in the streets of Teheran. The contravening ones incur between 10 and 60 days of prison or a fine”, said Delphine Minou’i, the correspondent of the French centre right daily “Le Figaro” in Tehran, adding:
[COLOR="Red"]In Tehran, it became a routine. As soon as the scarves and the coats narrow, the police force launches its hunting to the badly buckled women. The New Persian Year (that starts from the first day of spring) does not escape the rule: "We will prevail against the women who carry light scarves, short trousers and curved coats", General Tala’i had warned last week. He also threatened to sanction the stores which sell too light women’s dresses.[/COLOR]
Sat in his shop perched on the second floor of the Ghassem passage, in full heart of the market of Tajrish in the posh north part of the Capital, Hessam, a young salesman, fears the worst. "Here we go again!", he lamented. Last year, he was constrained to put the key under the door during ten days and to pay a fine being equivalent to 500 euros (twice the average monthly wages).
The reason, according to the Moral Guards: a window decorated with "decadent" coats, in other words "too coloured" and "too moulding". Therefore, this year, ht chooses to be prudent. "I have just received a stock of pantacourts, because the Iranian women love them. For the time being, I have left them in store ", he says.
The election, last June, of Ahmadi Nezhad, an ultra conservative has led people to fear for the worst as regard of repressions. But up to now, the President seems to be too absorbed by his political offensive launched on the international scene to be concerned with behaviour of the Iranian women.
I do not intend to change my practices. I refuse to be afraid " says a young girl while adjusting her make up with audacity.
However, one has to wait to see whether the new campaign, launched by the police force, will prove more severe than the previous years. According to announced figures, fifty patrols were deployed through the capital. The contravening ones incur between 10 and 60 days of prison or a fine going of 50 000 to 500 000 Rials (between 5 and 50 euros.
In the neighbourhoods of the Vanak Square, a high spot of the Iranian dredgers, one could see them carrying out checks on sunset, without however attacking outright "badly veiled".
"They surely wait for the beginning of the week to start seriously repressing", Hessam says. With her coloured hairs that come out from the scarf, and her coat curved out of jeans, Mina Elmi, a 21 year old coed, does not look much affraid. "I do not intend to change my practices. I refuse to be afraid ", she says while adjusting her make up with audacity.
At her sides, Sepideh Yazdi, her partner of window shopping, is proud to show us her last purchases: light shoes with arrow ends, the last word for Tehrani modern women.
Despite obligation to wear scarf, enfoced since the seizure of power by the mollahs in 1979, Iranian women do not deprive themselves from being “cocquettes”. On the contrary. Times have changed since the first years that followed the Islamic Revolution during which the "Islamic sisters" took care severely of the grain: colors banned, head to toe large gowns that slip to the ankles and socks in the sandals obligatory.
It was with the arrival with arrival to power of the moderate president Mohammad Khatami in May 1997 that the Iranian women started to enjoy some freedoms: initially half transparent scarves were followed by touches of make-up, then the coats that stop above the knee.
"With the passing of years, the Iranian women succeeded in imposing the change, with homeopathic amount. Condemned to invisibility, they launched out like challenge to become again visible. And they do not seem ready to give up it ", notices the Iranian sociologist Masserat Amir Ebrahimi. ENDS SOCIAL REPRESSION 22406
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2006/april-2006/social_repression_22406.shtml
By Safa Haeri-Delphine Minoui
Posted Saturday, April 22, 2006
e-mail E-mail this page print Printer-friendly page
Paris, 22 Apr. (IPS) Iran will increase police patrols to enforce women's skirt lengths, proper head scarves and even curtail dog-walking during the summer.
"In our campaign, we will confront women showing their bare legs in short pants", said Tehran's police chief, Morteza Tala’i.
"In our campaign, we will confront women showing their bare legs in short pants", said Tehran's police chief, Morteza Tala’i.
"We are also going to combat women wearing skimpy headscarves, short and form-fitting coats, and the ones walking pets in parks and streets" he added.
Women who do not wear the veil can face 10 days to two months' imprisonment, or a fine.
200 hundred men and women police would roam streets in Tehran to preserve “social order, fighting “noise pollution, car owners who have placed excessive equipments on their vehicles, drug distributors and those assaulting women”, Tala’i told the conservatives-controlled “Fars” news agency.
"We are also going to combat women wearing skimpy headscarves or without socks, short and form-fitting coats, and the ones walking pets in parks and streets", he added.
Owning dogs is seen as unclean in Iran, and parading with them is off-limits.
Women who do not wear the veil can face 10 days to two months' imprisonment, or a fine.
Every woman in Iran, regardless of nationality or religion, must obey the country's dress code and cover her shape and hair outside the home.
Since the election of messianic President Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, conservatives in Tehran's city council have pressured police to get tough.
Organised by the authorities, a hundred women in black chadors demonstrated last week in front of the Majles, or the Iranian Parliament against “bad Islamic dressed women” and called on the government to severely punish not only the “Westoxisied’ women but also the shops selling “bas islamic dresses”.
Hence, General Tala’i’s threat against all the importers, distributors and sellers of such “un-Islamic” dresses.
Cab agencies, known in Iran as “ajans”, were also said they would be responsible for their client’s dresses and in case Moral Patrols notices a cab transporting men or woman passenger in un-Islamic dress, their license would be confiscated, Tala’i warned.
“With the arrival of nice days, the scarves and the coats narrow in the streets of Teheran. The contravening ones incur between 10 and 60 days of prison or a fine”, said Delphine Minou’i, the correspondent of the French centre right daily “Le Figaro” in Tehran, adding:
[COLOR="Red"]In Tehran, it became a routine. As soon as the scarves and the coats narrow, the police force launches its hunting to the badly buckled women. The New Persian Year (that starts from the first day of spring) does not escape the rule: "We will prevail against the women who carry light scarves, short trousers and curved coats", General Tala’i had warned last week. He also threatened to sanction the stores which sell too light women’s dresses.[/COLOR]
Sat in his shop perched on the second floor of the Ghassem passage, in full heart of the market of Tajrish in the posh north part of the Capital, Hessam, a young salesman, fears the worst. "Here we go again!", he lamented. Last year, he was constrained to put the key under the door during ten days and to pay a fine being equivalent to 500 euros (twice the average monthly wages).
The reason, according to the Moral Guards: a window decorated with "decadent" coats, in other words "too coloured" and "too moulding". Therefore, this year, ht chooses to be prudent. "I have just received a stock of pantacourts, because the Iranian women love them. For the time being, I have left them in store ", he says.
The election, last June, of Ahmadi Nezhad, an ultra conservative has led people to fear for the worst as regard of repressions. But up to now, the President seems to be too absorbed by his political offensive launched on the international scene to be concerned with behaviour of the Iranian women.
I do not intend to change my practices. I refuse to be afraid " says a young girl while adjusting her make up with audacity.
However, one has to wait to see whether the new campaign, launched by the police force, will prove more severe than the previous years. According to announced figures, fifty patrols were deployed through the capital. The contravening ones incur between 10 and 60 days of prison or a fine going of 50 000 to 500 000 Rials (between 5 and 50 euros.
In the neighbourhoods of the Vanak Square, a high spot of the Iranian dredgers, one could see them carrying out checks on sunset, without however attacking outright "badly veiled".
"They surely wait for the beginning of the week to start seriously repressing", Hessam says. With her coloured hairs that come out from the scarf, and her coat curved out of jeans, Mina Elmi, a 21 year old coed, does not look much affraid. "I do not intend to change my practices. I refuse to be afraid ", she says while adjusting her make up with audacity.
At her sides, Sepideh Yazdi, her partner of window shopping, is proud to show us her last purchases: light shoes with arrow ends, the last word for Tehrani modern women.
Despite obligation to wear scarf, enfoced since the seizure of power by the mollahs in 1979, Iranian women do not deprive themselves from being “cocquettes”. On the contrary. Times have changed since the first years that followed the Islamic Revolution during which the "Islamic sisters" took care severely of the grain: colors banned, head to toe large gowns that slip to the ankles and socks in the sandals obligatory.
It was with the arrival with arrival to power of the moderate president Mohammad Khatami in May 1997 that the Iranian women started to enjoy some freedoms: initially half transparent scarves were followed by touches of make-up, then the coats that stop above the knee.
"With the passing of years, the Iranian women succeeded in imposing the change, with homeopathic amount. Condemned to invisibility, they launched out like challenge to become again visible. And they do not seem ready to give up it ", notices the Iranian sociologist Masserat Amir Ebrahimi. ENDS SOCIAL REPRESSION 22406
http://www.iran-press-service.com/ips/articles-2006/april-2006/social_repression_22406.shtml