Last Updated: Friday, 27 April 2007, 08:28 GMT 09:28 UK

Crackdown in Iran over dress codes

By Frances Harrison

BBC News, Tehran

 

Hundreds of women have been arrested and imprisoned for "bad hijab"

 

Thousands of Iranian women have been cautioned over their poor Islamic dress this week and several hundred arrested in the capital Tehran in the most fierce crackdown on what's known as "bad hijab" for more than a decade.

It is the talk of the town. The latest police crackdown on Islamic dress has angered many Iranians - male, female, young and old.

 

But Iranian TV has reported that an opinion poll conducted in Tehran found 86% of people were in favour of the crackdown - a statistic that is surprising given the strength of feeling against this move.

 

Police cars are stationed outside major shopping centres in Tehran.

They are stopping pedestrians and even cars - warning female drivers not show any hair - and impounding the vehicles and arresting the women if they argue back.

Middle-aged women, foreign tourists and journalists have all been harassed, not just the young and fashionably dressed.

 

Individual choice

 

Overnight the standard of what is acceptable dress has slipped back.

 

"I want the whole world to know that they oppress us and all we can do is put up with it"

Tofiq, 15

 

Hard-won freedoms - like the right to wear a colourful headscarf - have been snatched away.

 

It may sound trivial but Iranian women have found ways of expressing their individuality and returning to drab colours like black, grey and dark blue is not something they will accept easily.

 

"If we want to do something we will do it anyway, all this is total nonsense," says a young girl, heavily made up and dressed up.

 

She believes Islamic dress should be something personal - whether you're swathed in a black chador or dressed in what she calls "more normal clothes".

 

Interestingly many women who choose to wear the all enveloping chador agree - saying it's a personal choice and shouldn't be forced on people.

 

"This year is much worse than before because the newspapers and the TV have given the issue a lot of coverage compared to last year; it wasn't this bad before," says Shabnam who's out shopping with her friend.

 

Permission denied

 

At the start of every summer the police say they will enforce the Islamic dress code, but this year has been unusually harsh.

 

Thousands of women have been cautioned by police over their dress, some have been jailed and obliged to sign statements that they will do better in the future before release, and some face court cases against them.

 

Even shop mannequins considered "too revealing" are dealt with

 

Though the authorities want coverage internally to scare women - they don't want the story broadcast abroad.

 

The BBC's cameraman was detained when he tried to film the police at work and the government denied us permission to go on patrol with the police.

 

"Really we don't have any security," complains Shabam's friend Leyla.

 

"Since we came out this morning many people we met have continuously warned us to be careful about our headscarves and to wear them further forward because they are arresting women who are dressed like this," she says.

 

Boutique owners are furious. Some shops have been sealed - others warned not to sell tight revealing clothing.

 

One shopkeeper selling evening dresses told us the moral police had ordered him to saw off the breasts of his mannequins because they were too revealing.

 

He said he wasn't the only shop to receive this strange instruction.

 

Respect

 

There's even been less traffic on the streets because some women are not venturing out - fearful they will be harassed.

 

And it's not even safe in a car. Taxi agencies have received a circular warning them not to carry a "bad hijabi".

 

"They have said we shouldn't carry passengers who wear bad Islamic dress and if we do we have to warn them to respect the Islamic dress code even inside the car," said one taxi driver.

 

And it's not just women who are being targeted this year.

 

Young men are being cautioned for wearing short sleeved shirts or for their hairstyles.

Morad - a hairdresser whose gelled hair is made to stand straight up - says it's necessary for him to look like this to attract customers.

 

"These last few days I don't dare walk down the main roads looking like this case I get arrested," he says.

"I use the side streets and alleys."

 

Morad is scared because his friends have told him they've seen the police seize young men and forcibly cut their hair if it's too long.

 

Fifteen-year-old Tofiq who'd also gelled his hair to stand on end said he too was afraid but he wasn't going to change.

 

"I want the whole world to know that they oppress us and all we can do is put up with it," he said.

 

Some parents have complained that harassing the young over their clothing will only push them to leave the country.

But one MP has said those Iranians who cannot cope with Islamic laws should leave.

Some commentators have suggested that the government is conducting this crackdown to distract attention from the rising cost of living in Iran and increasing tension with the international community over the nuclear issue.

 

If so, it's a strategy that risks alienating people who've got used to years of relative social freedom and do not want to return to the early days of the revolution when dress rules were much more tightly enforced.

 

Well my personal opinion of Iran is well known. Surely this is the latest act of evil & oppression against its own people? Or do you fully support a Government imposing it's will on a section of it's people?

Just shows how f***ed up religion is and not just islam, the world would be a better place if all religions were banned

Just shows how f***ed up religion is and not just islam, the world would be a better place if all religions were banned

 

Well it's not so much the various religions, but how they are used, abused and manipulated as a shield to hide behind.

 

This song sums it all up......

 

XTC - Dear God video

 

Lyric by: Andy Partridge

 

Dear God,

hope you got the letter, and...

I pray you can make it better down here.

I don't mean a big reduction in the price of beer

but all the people that you made in your image, see

them starving on their feet 'cause they don't get

enough to eat from God, I can't believe in you

 

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but... I feel that I should be heard

loud and clear. We all need a big reduction in amount of tears

and all the people that you made in your image, see them fighting

in the street 'cause they can't make opinions meet about God,

I can't believe in you

 

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue? Did you make

mankind after we made you? And the devil too!

 

Dear God, don't know if you noticed, but... your name is on

a lot of quotes in this book, and us crazy humans wrote it, you

should take a look, and all the people that you made in your

image still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain't, and

so do you, dear God, I can't believe in I don't believe in

 

I won't believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners, no

devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown. You're always

letting us humans down. The wars you bring, the babes you

drown. Those lost at sea and never found, and it's the same the

whole world 'round. The hurt I see helps to compound that

Father, Son and Holy Ghost is just somebody's unholy hoax,

and if you're up there you'd perceive that my heart's here upon

my sleeve. If there's one thing I don't believe in

 

it's you... Dear God.

This is only one religion though, not all religions make people dress like this.

Though this one is just wrong.

This is only one religion though, not all religions make people dress like this.

Though this one is just wrong.

 

Oh you are 100% right, Islam has always treated women like cattle or worse and its treatment of women and its lack of rights for women is vile

 

Ironically the one regime out there that gave women equality and rights was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where he had women in his cabinet and in senior positions in industry

Edited April 27, 200718 yr by Vic Vega

 

peter hitchens wrote a very interesting artical in last sundays mail (shut up...its a paper not my ideological doctrine). he highlighted the fact that most of the young free people were pretty westernised and were flounting the dress rules. most iranians were not anti uk/usa (remember iran was the regions closest aly to us). the mullahs though were preaching hatred towards the west. they were chanting 'death to england, death to america'.... boy we wouldnt say that about them! the gist of the artical was though that we shouldnt be threatening our closest ally there as if we do then the general population who are open to us, will back off and support the radical mullas against us.

Oh you are 100% right, Islam has always treated women like cattle or worse and its treatment of women and its lack of rights for women is vile

 

Ironically the one regime out there that gave women equality and rights was Saddam Hussein's Iraq, where he had women in his cabinet and in senior positions in industry

 

 

christianity has suppressed women, they arnt allowed to speak in church (let alone preach)..

 

and your own religion is guilty of ritual abuse... circumcission, and the stupid ringlets and apparrel your orthadox guys wear..

christianity has suppressed women, they arnt allowed to speak in church (let alone preach)..

 

and your own religion is guilty of ritual abuse... circumcission, and the stupid ringlets and apparrel your orthadox guys wear..

 

Like I said I would like to see all religions banned as far as I am concerned they are all cults that brainwash the weak and the gullible and rob people of independence of thought, that indeed does include my own religion, all religions are evil as far as I am concerned and have been responsible for more bloodshed and loss of life than anything I can think of

 

All religion should be banned

christianity has suppressed women, they arnt allowed to speak in church (let alone preach)..

 

and your own religion is guilty of ritual abuse... circumcission, and the stupid ringlets and apparrel your orthadox guys wear..

 

Less so though, there are women priests and women vicars etc whereas there will not in my lifetime be a woman mullah/imam/islamic cleric giving a sermon in a mosque

Edited April 27, 200718 yr by Vic Vega

It is my absolute worst nightmare to live under a Theocracy. I truly can't think of anything worse.... :cry:

Like I said I would like to see all religions banned as far as I am concerned they are all cults that brainwash the weak and the gullible and rob people of independence of thought, that indeed does include my own religion, all religions are evil as far as I am concerned and have been responsible for more bloodshed and loss of life than anything I can think of

 

All religion should be banned

 

 

oh i fully agree... religion is evil, the sooner we get rid of it the better... but thatll never happen. too much power over people is tied up in it.

Is this The Clerics' doing or is it "Mad B/astard" Ahmadinejad, who frankly is a total loony whom the Ayatollahs cannot stand... The Clerics in Iran just now are actually pretty moderate in comparison to the elected Iranian President.... So, who is it that's preciptated this "bad hijab" move....? I rather suspect that it is the Iranian Govt's (ie Ahmadinejad) doing and not the Clerics themselves.... Ahmadinejad is a nutter who will do just about anything to hold onto power...

oh i fully agree... religion is evil, the sooner we get rid of it the better... but thatll never happen. too much power over people is tied up in it.

 

Wont find any argument from me either.... As Karl Marx once wrote "religion is the opiate of the masses"... It really is like a dangerous fukkin' addictive drug, turning sane, rational people into mindless automatons craving the next "fix".....

 

Less so though, there are women priests and women vicars etc whereas there will not in my lifetime be a woman mullah/imam/islamic cleric giving a sermon in a mosque

 

Women Priests??? Where mate...? I've never heard of the Catholic church ordaining a woman into the Priesthood.... Do you know something I don't.... I think you're getting your Anglican/Lutheran and your Catholic mixed up mate, or else your Vicars and Priests.... Last time I looked, the Catholic Church was still its usual homophobic, mysoginistic self....

 

That 86% figure I don't believe for a SECOND. In a country where you can be arrested for wearing a colorful hijab and HANGED for having gay sex, are you really gonna tell a strange reporter that you don't support the crackdown?! It's like those teen sex polls where 92% of 15 year old males claim to have regular sex. More like 92% SAID they have sex but many don't.

Some parents have complained that harassing the young over their clothing will only push them to leave the country.

But one MP has said those Iranians who cannot cope with Islamic laws should leave.

Some commentators have suggested that the government is conducting this crackdown to distract attention from the rising cost of living in Iran and increasing tension with the international community over the nuclear issue.

 

Very interesting. The sad fact is that so very many Iranians have left the country and are living immeasurably better lives in their new countries. The communities of ex-pats in Toronto, Los Angeles, Stockholm number in the hundreds of thousands.

 

I've said this before but my boyfriend is Iranian and moved to Sweden, then the US when he was a young child. Watching the news footage of men being HANGED for suspition of homosexuality really hit home. If he were still living there... I just don't even want to think of it.

I have typed out a post and promptly deleted it about 5 times as I keep thinking more and more about this issue. :P So I want to just throw out about 10 ideas that come to mind. Sorry if it is scatterbrained :wacko:

 

-Vic's point stands in that at least SOME christian faiths allow women to participate on an equal level to men.

 

-Arguing about what mulluhs or the Pope says can be kind of dangerous - it presumes that the billion or so Muslim and Christian laypeople all subscribe to the same beliefs. I've seen informal polls of Catholics that show large support for gay marriage despite the Church's official stance and I'd be damned if more than a tiny minority of Catholics support the no-women-priests stance. I don't even think many priests can justify that anymore.

 

-Similarly, there are likely many Muslims whose actual beliefs differ from the Qu'ran. The question is, are they legally able to express this in their countries? It brings up an issue of CULTURE. Would a strict CATHOLIC country based on Catholic Law be any less oppressive that of the Muslim theocracies in the Middle East? Again, it becomes an issue not of Muslim vs. Christian but of democracy vs. theocracy in my opinion.

Women Priests??? Where mate...? I've never heard of the Catholic church ordaining a woman into the Priesthood.... Do you know something I don't.... I think you're getting your Anglican/Lutheran and your Catholic mixed up mate, or else your Vicars and Priests.... Last time I looked, the Catholic Church was still its usual homophobic, mysoginistic self....

 

Yeah I got my words a bit mixed up lol I meant vicars not priests, with these dinosaurs they keep electing as pope's there will probably be a woman mullah before there is a woman priest, I meant vicars but my concentration was $h!t last night :blush:

christianity has suppressed women, they arnt allowed to speak in church (let alone preach)..

 

 

really?? funny that as I have spoken often in church - have read on altars in many churches, I personally know 2 woman vicars,

 

as as for Catholics?? well May is the month of Mary ;) (and she was a woman)

Oh you are 100% right, Islam has always treated women like cattle or worse and its treatment of women and its lack of rights for women is vile

 

 

I am sorry but you are wrong.

 

Islamic extreamists marginalise women - but Islam doesn't - in fact women in Islam have much the same rights and respect.