Iran arrests 300 ‘insufficiently veiled’ women
Bwalker545
Posts: 162
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18277927/
TEHRAN, Iran - With the arrival of spring, Iranian police have launched a crackdown against women accused of not covering up enough, arresting nearly 300 women, some for wearing too tight an overcoat or letting too much hair peek out from under their veil, authorities said Monday.
The campaign in the streets of major cities was the toughest such crackdown in nearly two decades, raising fears that hard-liner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to re-impose the tough Islamic Revolution-era constraints on women's dress that loosened in past years.
The move highlighted the new boldness among hard-liners in Ahmadinejad's government, which has used mounting Western pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program and Iraq as a pretext to put down internal dissent.
But it could bring a backlash at a time when many Iranians resent Ahmadinejad for failing to boost the faltering economy or halt spiraling prices and blame him for isolating Iran with his fiery rhetoric. The two-day-old crackdown was already angering moderates.
"What they do is really insulting. You simply can't tell people what to wear. They don't understand that use of force only brings hatred toward them, not love," said Elham Mohammadi, a 23-year-old female student.
Her hair was hardly hidden by her white-and-orange headscarf — an infraction that could bring police attention. Police could be seen Monday stopping and giving warnings to other women who were showing too much hair or even wearing too colorful a headscarf.
Looser dress codes are one of the few surviving gains from the era of Ahmadinejad's predecessor, reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who was in power from 1997 to 2005.
During that time, many women, particularly in cities, shed the dress code imposed after the 1979 revolution — veils completely covering the hair and heavy coats or the black or gray head-to-toe chador hiding the shape of the body.
Now it is common to see women in loose headscarves — some as narrow as a ribbon — that show much of their hair and short, colorful, form-fitting jackets that stop at the knee — or even higher — showing jeans underneath. Even under Ahmadinejad in the past two years, women can be seen in pants that leave the bottom of their calves bare.
Any of those styles could bring warnings or detention from the anti-vice police in the current sweep, which began Saturday.
Women among anti-vice police
Anti-vice police — many of them women — have been stopping women in the streets of the capital and other cities if they deem their dress is "un-Islamic."
So far, 278 women have been detained, 231 of whom were released after they signed papers promising they won't appear "inadequately dressed in public," police spokesman Col. Mahi Ahmadi told The Associated Press Monday.
Another 3,548 women have been given "warnings and Islamic guidance," without being detained, Ahmadi said.
Twelve men have also been detained for "not observing the proper Islamic dress code" by wearing tight pants or short-sleeve shirts, he said.
Every spring, there are calls by clerics for a crackdown, and the past two years have seen minor, localized sweeps. But this year's was the first since before Khatami's presidency to see so many arrests and had high prominence in the government media, warning women to adhere to Islamic dress.
Ahmadi said the sweep would go on "as long as necessary," but it was not clear whether it heralded an all-out, permanent campaign to bar looser dress codes.
One hard-liner cleric on Monday warned of a backlash. "In many cases, the use of force in the fight against social harms can backfire," the head of judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, said, according to the state news agency IRNA.
Qom clerics called for crackdown
But many conservatives were applauding the crackdown, launched after a call from senior hard-line clerics in the holy city of Qom to tighten the reins.
"All are responsible towards the problem of inadequate dress," Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, one senior Qom cleric, told newspapers.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the interior minister in charge of the campaign, said it would please the people by restoring social stability.
"People are unhappy with the social and moral status of the society. They expect that the fight against social insecurity be properly implemented," Pourmohammadi was quoted in the conservative daily Resalat as saying.
Hard-line lawmaker, Mohammad Taqi Rahbar, said the looser dress codes had prompted Iranian women and families "to cry out" for help. "Men see models in the streets and ignore their own wives at home. This weakens the pillars of family," he said.
Ever since Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005 elections, Iranians have been fearing a return to the prohibitions on "un-Islamic" dress, music, male and female mixing and the other restrictions from the revolution's heyday.
But criticism of the president has been increasing as prices for basic good like food and housing have increased in past months — despite his campaign promises to reduce poverty.
"The problem of our country is unemployment, rapid increase in the number of crimes and murders, not women's dress," said Sadeq Rowshani, a bank clerk.
I really do not know what to say about that. Seems amazing that this is possible in a supposed Republic...
TEHRAN, Iran - With the arrival of spring, Iranian police have launched a crackdown against women accused of not covering up enough, arresting nearly 300 women, some for wearing too tight an overcoat or letting too much hair peek out from under their veil, authorities said Monday.
The campaign in the streets of major cities was the toughest such crackdown in nearly two decades, raising fears that hard-liner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad intends to re-impose the tough Islamic Revolution-era constraints on women's dress that loosened in past years.
The move highlighted the new boldness among hard-liners in Ahmadinejad's government, which has used mounting Western pressure on Tehran over its nuclear program and Iraq as a pretext to put down internal dissent.
But it could bring a backlash at a time when many Iranians resent Ahmadinejad for failing to boost the faltering economy or halt spiraling prices and blame him for isolating Iran with his fiery rhetoric. The two-day-old crackdown was already angering moderates.
"What they do is really insulting. You simply can't tell people what to wear. They don't understand that use of force only brings hatred toward them, not love," said Elham Mohammadi, a 23-year-old female student.
Her hair was hardly hidden by her white-and-orange headscarf — an infraction that could bring police attention. Police could be seen Monday stopping and giving warnings to other women who were showing too much hair or even wearing too colorful a headscarf.
Looser dress codes are one of the few surviving gains from the era of Ahmadinejad's predecessor, reformist President Mohammad Khatami, who was in power from 1997 to 2005.
During that time, many women, particularly in cities, shed the dress code imposed after the 1979 revolution — veils completely covering the hair and heavy coats or the black or gray head-to-toe chador hiding the shape of the body.
Now it is common to see women in loose headscarves — some as narrow as a ribbon — that show much of their hair and short, colorful, form-fitting jackets that stop at the knee — or even higher — showing jeans underneath. Even under Ahmadinejad in the past two years, women can be seen in pants that leave the bottom of their calves bare.
Any of those styles could bring warnings or detention from the anti-vice police in the current sweep, which began Saturday.
Women among anti-vice police
Anti-vice police — many of them women — have been stopping women in the streets of the capital and other cities if they deem their dress is "un-Islamic."
So far, 278 women have been detained, 231 of whom were released after they signed papers promising they won't appear "inadequately dressed in public," police spokesman Col. Mahi Ahmadi told The Associated Press Monday.
Another 3,548 women have been given "warnings and Islamic guidance," without being detained, Ahmadi said.
Twelve men have also been detained for "not observing the proper Islamic dress code" by wearing tight pants or short-sleeve shirts, he said.
Every spring, there are calls by clerics for a crackdown, and the past two years have seen minor, localized sweeps. But this year's was the first since before Khatami's presidency to see so many arrests and had high prominence in the government media, warning women to adhere to Islamic dress.
Ahmadi said the sweep would go on "as long as necessary," but it was not clear whether it heralded an all-out, permanent campaign to bar looser dress codes.
One hard-liner cleric on Monday warned of a backlash. "In many cases, the use of force in the fight against social harms can backfire," the head of judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi Shahroudi, said, according to the state news agency IRNA.
Qom clerics called for crackdown
But many conservatives were applauding the crackdown, launched after a call from senior hard-line clerics in the holy city of Qom to tighten the reins.
"All are responsible towards the problem of inadequate dress," Ayatollah Nasser Makarem Shirazi, one senior Qom cleric, told newspapers.
Mostafa Pourmohammadi, the interior minister in charge of the campaign, said it would please the people by restoring social stability.
"People are unhappy with the social and moral status of the society. They expect that the fight against social insecurity be properly implemented," Pourmohammadi was quoted in the conservative daily Resalat as saying.
Hard-line lawmaker, Mohammad Taqi Rahbar, said the looser dress codes had prompted Iranian women and families "to cry out" for help. "Men see models in the streets and ignore their own wives at home. This weakens the pillars of family," he said.
Ever since Ahmadinejad won the presidency in 2005 elections, Iranians have been fearing a return to the prohibitions on "un-Islamic" dress, music, male and female mixing and the other restrictions from the revolution's heyday.
But criticism of the president has been increasing as prices for basic good like food and housing have increased in past months — despite his campaign promises to reduce poverty.
"The problem of our country is unemployment, rapid increase in the number of crimes and murders, not women's dress," said Sadeq Rowshani, a bank clerk.
I really do not know what to say about that. Seems amazing that this is possible in a supposed Republic...
"Almost unconsciously he traced with his finger in the dust on the table: 2+2=5" 1984
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
funny, this sort of shit never happened in iraq.
almost as stupid as when some states/cities fine women for wearing too little clothing.
or muslim women in some parts of europe who choose to cover themselves but are not allowed to. pretty stupid laws eh?
Agreed 100%.
Apparently Iranian men have no self-control when confronted with the vision of a female figure:
what's that saying about who cares where you get the appetite as long as you come home for the dinner?
Exactly! You can look at the menu, you just can't eat.
Religious fundamentalism is characterized by "thought-action fusion" ... The belief that thinking about doing something is just as bad as actually doing it. Major cognitive distortion.
hehe IRAQ HAD BONG SHOPS
through out all of history. the female body has been looked at as something that can be used for destroying empires,bringing down kings. you name it. and it has.
So from a historical context, men have a lot to fear from the strange,good looking woman on the street.
does that sorta answer your question?
I mean since i'm not scared of the female body, well unless its a sorta large woman in a very tight something with things hanging out. which may scare me. I can't really answer that question, I can just give you a broader answer from a historical point of view.
not that I think its a good reason.
Yeah, I remember Jimmy Carter confessing that he'd committed adultery in his heart. That caused quite a stir. Nutty fundamentalists everywhere, I guess.
It's all those curves.
A lot of men have an inner-ear imbalance and they get somewhat dizzy from trying to follow the curves of the female body:D
Furthemore, those symptoms are followed by much more severe symptoms and behavior.
The salivary glands begin producing saliva at excessive rates.
Their tounges become stimulated and swollen, which then leads to an uncontrolable tounge dialation, which in-turn leads the tounge dropping out of the mouth and to the ground.
Then their penis become stiff, erect and magically tears it's way through trousers and any other clothing in it's way.
At this point the poor fellow can not be held responsible for his behavior or actions. It's a condition....a disease...an entitlement of being a male......of having a penis:rolleyes:
Absolutely. It's all so stupid and archaic.
Because men are not responsible for their own actions and urges? Because it's all the temptress' fault?
No, what it shows (as I mentioned from a historical point of view) is that us guys are stupid and always have been on some level.
especially when it comes to women.
That was my point.
ah just expanding on it.
I know I've posted about this before, but these stories always remind me of when Golda Meir was the prime minister of Israel. During her tenure, there was a large increase in the number of rapes, and the parliament proposed that there be a curfew on women to protect them. Ms. Meir wasn't too happy with this, and said that if it was men who were doing the raping, it was men who should be under curfew. This was such an outlandish idea ... restrict the MEN?!!?! .... that they dropped talk of curfews entirely.
Who am I kidding? Not just some, most of them.
Tue Apr 24, 11:36 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Native American and Alaskan women are suffering rates of rape and sexual violence nearly three times higher than the US national average, Amnesty says in a new study released Tuesday.
The human rights watchdog said a complex maze of tribal, state and federal jurisdictions often allowed men to rape with impunity, creating a vicious cycle that emboldened rapists and led to more attacks.
The study cited Justice Department figures which indicated that American Indian and Alaska Native women were 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than women in the United States in general.
The figures said more than one in three Native women would be raped in their lifetime, although that figure may in fact be substantially higher because of a traditional reluctance to report sex crimes.
"Native women are brutalized at an alarming rate, and the United States government, a purported champion of women's rights, is unfortunately contributing to the problem," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA.
"It is disgraceful that such abuse even exists today. Without immediate action, an already abysmal and outrageous situation for women could spiral even further out of control."
The Amnesty report "Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women From Sexual Violence in the USA" said many rape investigations stalled as officers tried to establish who the investigating authority was
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070424/ts_alt_afp/usindiannativecrime_070424153637
In Iran nobody is permitted to watch Satellite TV.
There are rules for men, as well as women.
Here is a nice documentary about such life in Iran
http://video.google.ca/videoplay?docid=554201962695917482&q=rageh+in+iran
Could it not be considered a biology book or something? Why title it feminist? It makes no sense to me! Now feminism is everything female, how the fuck do I know the difference? Aggh, the sky is falling!
Also, apparently because I'm a man I can't obtain "self-knowledge and empowerment" holy fuck! Now I have to right a masculine counter-book, to argue men can be enlightened and empowered and we should not submit to the wisdom of women!
Damn, why am I being so nice about it? I shouldn't have said 'wisdom', should have said 'bullshit' cause that's how we get down in this battle of the sexes.
Nu ah, should be the other way around. Nature is life, time is death.
Little red riding hood, and you know the big bad wolf has to be a dude.
Come to think of it, pretty much all the bad people in fairy tales are men, and the good people are women and children. Fuck!
Did I mention how boring this board is today?