Monday, August 22, 2005

Iranian Government And Women's Rights

Here is a cause for the Hollywood looney crowd. What stars will be flying off to Tehran to protest? How many who stay home will gather outside the Iranian embassy? Will Ahmadinejad be the butt of jokes at all the Glitter Town gatherings? Will George Soros dip into his fanny pack and produce millions to start organizations aimed at bringing down this government?
The question is, how much rage and venom will this evoke from the outspoken left? Zip!


Tehran, Iran, Aug. 20 – The man designated by Iran’s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as his Minister of Justice vowed on Saturday that “improperly-veiled women” will be treated as if they had no Islamic veil at all.

Jamal Karimi-Rad told the local press, “Being improperly veiled and not wearing a veil are no different. When it is clear from the appearance of a woman that she has violated the law, then the crime is obvious and law enforcement agents can take legal measures against her”.

“Crimes such as mal-veiling or other prohibited acts, which happen before the eyes of a law enforcement agent, are evident crimes and must be dealt with in accordance with the law”, Karimi-Rad said.

Karimi-Rad also made it clear that members of the para-military Bassij and the notorious Ansar-e Hizbollah, government-organised gangs of hooligans, are regarded as law enforcement agents in clergy-ruled Iran.

Women have been facing a harsher crackdown since the June elections that led to Ahmadinejad’s presidency.

In July, Iran deployed squads of women-only vice police to clamp down on “un-Islamic” dress. The semi-official Jomhouri Islami recently reported that women have been arrested in Iran for “disrespecting Islamic virtues and for having repulsive and immoral attire”.

With the arrival of a top commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as the country’s new police chief, a new summer-long crackdown on “social vice” in Tehran was launched targeting young women.

State-run news agencies reported that “mal-veiled or unveiled individuals inside and outside of cars” would be the target of arrests by Iran’s State Security Forces, the paramilitary police force. The police would also embark on a systematic clampdown on “shops and public places where public chastity and Islamic values are ignored”.

From Iran-Focus News.

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